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A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 


A  Girl '  s  Student  Days 
and  After 


By 

JE  ANNETTE  MARKS,  M.  A. 
(Welledey) 

With  an  Introduction  by 
MARY  EMMA  WQOLLEY,  LL.D. 

President  of  Mt.  Holyoke  College 


New    York  Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming     H.      Revel  I     Company 

London  and          Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1911,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  100  Princes  Street 


STACK 

ANNtt 

5125814 


Inscribed 

to 
MARY  EMMA  WOOLLEY,  LL.  D. 


Introduction 

THE  school  and  college  girl  is  an 
important  factor  in  our  life  to-day. 
Around  her  revolve  all  manner  of 
educational  schemes,  to  her  are  open  all 
kinds  of  educational  opportunities.  There 
was  never  an  age  in  which  so  much  thought 
was  expended  upon  her,  or  so  much  interest 
felt  in  her  development. 

There  are  many  articles  written  and  many 
speeches  delivered  on  the  responsibility  of 
parents  and  teachers — it  may  not  be  amiss 
occasionally  to  turn  the  shield  and  show  that 
some  of  the  responsibility  rests  upon  the  girl 
herself.  After  all,  she  is  the  determining 
factor,  for  buildings  and  equipment,  courses 
and  teachers  accomplish  little  without  her 
cooperation. 

It  is  difficult  for  the  "new  girl,"  whether 
in  school  or  college,  to  realize  the  extent  to 
which  the  success  of  her  school  life  depends 
[7] 


Introduction 


upon  herself.  In  a  new  environment,  sur- 
rounded by  what  seem  to  her  "  multitudes  " 
of  new  faces,  obliged  to  meet  larger  demands 
under  strange  and  untried  conditions,  she  is 
quite  likely  to  go  to  the  other  extreme  and 
exaggerate  her  own  insignificance.  Some- 
times she  is  fortunate  enough  to  have  an 
older  sister  or  friend  to  help  her  steer  her 
bark  through  these  untried  waters,  but  gen- 
erally she  must  find  her  own  bearings. 

To  such  a  girl,  the  wise  hints  in  the 
chapters  which  follow  this  introduction  are 
invaluable,  giving  an  insight  into  the  mean- 
ing of  fair-play  in  the  classroom  as  well  as 
on  the  athletic  field;  the  relation  between 
physical  well-being  and  academic  success ; 
the  difference  between  the  social  life  that  is 
recreative  and  that  which  is  "  nerves-crea- 
tive " ;  the  significance  of  loyalty  to  the 
school  and  to  the  home;  the  way  in  which 
school  days  determine  to  a  large  degree  the 
days  that  come  after.  These,  and  many 
other  suggestions,  wise  and  forceful,  I  com- 
[8] 


Introduction 


mend  not  only  to  the  new  girl,  but  also  to 
the  "  old  girl "  who  would  make  her  school 
and  college  days  count  for  more  both  while 
they  last  and  as  preparation  for  the  work 
that  is  to  follow. 

MARY  E.  WOOLLEY. 

Mt.  Holyoke  College, 

South  Hadlcy,  Massachusetts. 


[9] 


CONTENTS 

A  WORD  TO  THE  WISE  .         .        .13 

I.  THE  IDEAL  FRESHMAN    .        .        .17 

II.  THE  GIRL  AND  THE  SCHOOL    .         .  25 

III.  FRIENDSHIPS 33 

IV.  THE  STUDENT'S  ROOM     ...  41 

V.  THE  TOOLS  OF  STUDY  AND  THEIR 

USE 54 

VI.  THE  JOY  OF  WORK  61 

VII.  FAIR-PLAY      .                 ...  70 

VIII.  THE  RIGHT  SORT  OF  LEISURE         .  78 

IX.  THE  OUTDOOR  RUNWAY          .         .  88 

X.  A  GIRL'S  SUMMER  ....  99 

XI.  FROM  THE  SCHOOL  TO  THE  GIRL     .  107 

XII.  THE  WORK  TO  BE.        .        .        .  "5 


A  Word  to  the  Wise 

WE  train  for  basket-ball,  golf,  tennis 
or  for  whatever  sport  we  have  the 
most  liking.  Is  there  any  reason 
why  we  should  not  use  the  same  intelligence 
in  the  approach  to  our  general  school  life  ? 
Is  there  any  reason  why  we  should  make  an 
obstacle  race,  however  good  and  amusing 
exercise  that  may  be,  out  of  all  our  school 
life  ?  We  don't  expect  to  win  a  game  with  a 
sprained  wrist  or  ankle,  and  there  really  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  plan  to  sprain  the  back 
of  school  or  college  life  by  avoidable  mistakes. 
The  writer  believes  in  the  girl  who  has  the 
capacity  for  making  mistakes, — that  head- 
long, energetic  spirit  which  blunders  all  too 
easily.  But  the  writer  knows  how  much 
those  mistakes  hurt  and  how  much  energy 
might  be  saved  for  a  life  that,  with  just  a 
pinch  less  of  blunder,  might  be  none  the  less 
savoury.  School  and  college  are  no  place  for 


A  Word  to   the   Wise 

vocal  soloists,  and  after  some  of  us  have  sung 
so  sweetly  and  so  long  at  home,  with  every 
one  saying,  "Just  hear  Mary  sing,  isn't  it 
wonderful  1"  it  is  rather  trying,  you  know,  to 
go  to  a  place  where  vocal  solos  are  not 
popular.  And  we  wish  some  one — at  least  I 
did — had  told  us  all  about  this  fact  as  well  as 
other  facts  of  school  life.  Anyway  it  should 
be  a  comfort  to  have  a  book  lying  on  the 
table  in  our  school  or  college  room,  or  at 
home,  which  will  tell  us  why  Mary,  after 
having  been  a  famous  soloist  at  home  made 
a  failure  or  a  great  success  in  chorus  work  at 
school.  Such  a  book  is  something  like  having 
a  loaded  gun  in  readiness  for  the  robber.  We 
may  never  use  the  shotgun  or  the  book  but 
they  are  there,  with  the  reassuring  sense  of 
shot  in  the  locker. 

It  is  something,  is  it  not,  to  have  a  little 
book  which  will  tell  you  how  to  get  into 
school  and  how  to  get  out  (for  at  times  there 
seem  to  be  difficulties  in  both  these  direc- 
tions)— in  short,  to  tell  you  something  of 


A  Word  to  the   Wise 

many  things :  your  first  year  at  school  or 
college,  your  part  in  the  school  life,  the  friend- 
ships you  will  make,  your  study  and  how  to 
work  in  it,  the  pleasure  and  right  kind  of 
spirit  involved  in  work,  the  quiet  times,  as 
well  as  the  jolly  times,  out-of-doors,  your 
summers  and  how  to  spend  them,  what  the 
school  has  tried  to  do  for  you ;  and,  as  you 
go  out  into  the  world,  some  of  the  aspects, 
whether  you  are  to  be  wife,  secretary  or 
teacher,  of  the  work  which  you  will  do.  Of 
one  thing  you  may  be  certain ;  that  behind 
every  sentence  of  this  little  book  is  ex- 
perience, that  here  are  only  those  opinions 
of  which  experience  has  made  a  good,  whole- 
some zwieback. 

I  wish  to  take  this  opportunity  to  thank  my 
friend,  Mrs.  Belle  Kellogg  Towne,  editor  of 
The  Girls1  Companion,  and  Young  People's 
Weekly,  Chicago,  for  her  cooperation  in  al- 
lowing me  to  use  half  the  material  in  this  little 
book ;  also  Dr.  C.  R.  Blackall,  of  Philadelphia. 

Camp  Runway.  J.    Mi 

['5] 


THE  IDEAL  FRESHMAN 

FRESHMAN  year,  the  beginning  year, 
the    year    of    new   experiences,   new 
delights,  new  work,  new  friends,  new 
surroundings ;  the  year  that  may  mean  much 
to   a    girl,   that    may  answer  some  of  the 
questions  that  have  lain  long  in  heart  and 
mind,  that  will  surely  reveal  her  more  clearly 
to   herself,   that  may   make  her  understand 
others  better  and  help  her  to  guess  something 
of  the  riddle  of  the  years  to  come ! 

What  has  the  student  done  to  get  ready 
for  this  year?  If  she  were  going  camping 
she  would  know  that  certain  things  were  neces- 
sary to  make  the  expedition  a  success.  With 
what  excitement  and  pleasure,  what  thoughts 
of  jolly  camp-fires,  deep,  sweet-smelling 
forests,  and  long  days  afoot,  she  would  pre- 
pare everything.  She  would  not  let  any  one 
else  do  this  for  her,  for  that  would  mean 


A  Gir/'s  Student  Days  and  After 

losing  too  much  of  the  fun.  But  the  freshman 
year,  what  about  the  thinking  and  planning 
for  that,  also  an  expedition  into  a  new  world, 
and  a  veritable  adventure  of  a  vast  deal  more 
importance  than  a  few  days  or  weeks  of 
camping?  Would  she  enter  forests  upon 
whose  trees  the  camp-fires  throw  many  shad- 
ows, follow  the  stream  that  cleaves  its  way 
through  the  woods,  go  along  the  runway  of 
deer  or  caribou  or  moose,  with  a  mind  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  a  blank  ?  No,  her 
mind  would  be  vivid  with  thoughts  and 
interests. 

With  the  same  keen  attention  should  she 
enter  the  new  year  at  school  or  college,  and 
as  she  passes  through  it,  thinking  about  all 
that  comes  to  her,  she  will  find  it  growing 
less  and  less  difficult  and  more  and  more 
friendly.  She  will  consider  what  the  fresh- 
man year  is  to  be  like,  think  of  what  sorts  of 
girls  she  is  to  meet  and  make  friends  with, 
what  the  work  will  be,  what  she  may  expect 
in  good  times  from  this  new  adventure,  and, 
[18] 


The  Ideal  Freshman 

thoughtful  about  it  all,  make  the  minimum  of 
mistakes  and  get  the  maximum  of  benefit. 

Here  come  some  of  the  girls  who  are 
entering  school  and  college  with  her — bright- 
haired,  dark-haired,  rosy  or  pale,  tall  and  thin, 
fat  and  short,  clever  and  average,  desirable 
and  undesirable, — in  fact,  all  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  girls.  Who  is  to  be  the  leader  of  them 
all  ?  She  is  the  ideal  freshman,  a  nice,  well- 
set-up  girl  who  does  not  think  too  much  of 
herself,  who  is  not  self-conscious,  and  who 
does  not  forget  for  what  she  is  sent  to  school. 
Despite  the  temptations  of  school  life  she 
uses  her  days  wisely  and  well.  She  does  not 
isolate  herself,  for  she  sees  the  plan  and  value 
of  the  recreative  side  of  school-days.  She  is 
already  laying  the  foundations  for  a  successful, 
useful,  normal  existence,  establishing  confi- 
dence at  the  outset  and  not  handicapping 
herself  through  her  whole  course  by  making 
people  lose  their  faith  in  her.  Our  ideal 
freshman  may  be  the  girl  who  is  to  do 
distinguished  work  ;  she  may  be  the  student 
[19] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

who  does  her  best ;  and  because  it  is  her  best, 
the  work,  though  not  brilliant,  is  distinguished 
by  virtue  of  her  effort.  She  may  be  the  girl 
who  is  to  make  a  happy  home  life  through 
her  poise  and  earnestness  and  common  sense. 
Whoever  she  is,  in  any  event  in  learning  to 
do  her  best  she  is  winning  nine-tenths  of  the 
battle  of  a  successful  career.  It  is  she,  at- 
tractive, able,  earnest,  with  the  "  fair-play "  or 
team-play  spirit  in  all  she  does,  true  to  herself 
and  to  others,  whom  every  school  wants, 
whose  unconscious  influence  is  so  great  in 
building  up  the  morale  of  any  school.  Mark 
this  girl  and  follow  her,  for  she  is  worthy  of 
your  hero  worship. 

This  is  the  girl  who  goes  into  school  in 
much  the  same  spirit  that  she  would  enter 
upon  a  larger  life.  She  is  not  a  prig  and  she 
is  not  a  dig,  but  she  knows  there  are  respon- 
sibilities to  be  met  and  she  meets  them.  She 
expects  to  have  to  think  about  the  new  con- 
ditions in  which  she  finds  herself  and  to 
adjust  herself  to  them,  and  she  does  it.  She 
[JO] 


The  Ideal  Freshman 

knows  the  meaning  of  the  team-play  spirit 
and  she  takes  her  place  quietly  on  the  team, 
one  among  many,  and  both  works  and  plays 
with  respect  for  the  rights  and  positions  of 
others.  It  is  in  the  temper  of  the  words 
sometimes  stamped  upon  the  coins  of  our 
country — E  Pluribus  Unum — that  she  makes 
a  success  of  her  school  life.  She  knows  that 
not  only  is  our  country  bigger  than  any  one 
of  its  states,  but  also  that  every  school  is 
bigger  than  any  one  of  its  members  whether 
teacher  or  student.  In  a  small  family  at 
home  conditions  have  been  more  or  less  made 
for  her,  just  as  they  are  for  other  girls.  Yet 
she  knows  that  the  school  life  is  complicated 
and  complex,  and  it  is  impossible  for  her  to 
feel  neglected  where  a  more  self-centred  or 
spoiled  girl  fails  to  see  that  in  this  new  life 
she  is  called  upon  to  play  a  minor  part  but 
nevertheless  a  part  upon  which  the  school 
must  rely  for  its  esprit  de  corps.  She  goes 
with  ease  from  the  somewhat  unmethodical 
life  of  the  home  to  the  highly  organized  rou- 

[21] 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

tine  of  the  school  because  she  understands 
the  meaning  of  the  word  "  team-play."  She 
has  the  cooperative  spirit. 

Yet  there  are  other  girls,  too,  in  this  school 
which  the  freshman  is  entering.  There  is  the 
student  who  errs  on  the  side  of  leading  too 
workaday  a  life,  and  in  so  doing  has  lost  some- 
thing of  the  buoyancy  and  breadth  and  "snap" 
which  would  make  her  associations  and  her 
work  fresher  and  more  vigorous.  "The 
Grind,"  she  has  been  called,  and  if  she  recog- 
nize herself  in  this  sketch,  let  her  take  care  to 
reach  out  for  a  bigger  and  fuller  life  than  she 
is  leading.  And  there  is,  too,  the  selfish  stu- 
dent whose  "class-spirit"  is  self-spirit;  and 
the  girl  who  is  not  selfish  but  who  uses  herself 
up  in  too  many  interests,  dramatic,  athletic, 
society,  philanthropic  and  in  a  dozen  others. 
She  is  probably  over-conscientious,  a  good 
girl  in  every  way,  but  in  doing  too  much  she 
loses  sight  of  the  real  aim  of  her  school  life. 
To  these  must  be  added  another  student, — 
the  freshman  who  skims  the  surface,  and  is, 

[22] 


The  Ideal  Freshman 

when  she  gets  out,  where  she  was  when  she 
entered — no,  not  quite  so  far  along,  for  she 
has  slipped  back.  She  is  selfish,  relying  upon 
the  patience  and  burden-bearing  capacity  of 
her  father  and  mother,  as  well  as  the  school. 
No  doubt  every  girl  would  meet  her 
obligations  squarely  if  she  realized  what  was 
the  underlying  significance  of  the  fresh- 
man year;  the  school  life  would  surely  be 
approached  with  a  conscientious  purpose. 
What  a  girl  gets  in  school  will  much  depend 
upon  what  she  has  to  give.  No  girl  is  there 
simply  to  have  a  good  time  or  merely  to  learn 
things  out  of  books.  Nor  is  she  there  to  fill 
in  the  interim  between  childhood  and  young 
womanhood,  when  one  will  go  into  society, 
another  marry,  and  a  third  take  up  some 
wage-earning  career.  No,  she  is  there  to 
carry  life  forward  in  the  deepest,  truest  sense ; 
and  the  longer  she  can  have  to  get  an  educa- 
tion and  to  make  the  best  of  the  opportunities 
of  school  and  college  life,  the  richer  and  fuller 
her  after-years  will  be.  Both  middle  life  and 
[23] 


A  Girfs  Student  Days  and  After 

old  age  will  be  deeper  and  stronger.  Let  us 
think  about  these  girls,  let  us  think  about 
what  it  means  to  be  a  freshman,  and  so 
lessen  our  difficulties  and  increase  our 
pleasures ;  let  us  have  a  big  conception, — a 
large  ideal  always  at  heart — of  what  the  first 
year  should  be,  and  beginning  well  we  shall 
be  the  more  likely  to  end  well 


[24] 


II 

THE  GIRL  AND  THE  SCHOOL 

INSIDE  school  or  college  the  girl  is  in 
several  ways  responsible  for  the  atmos- 
phere. Merely  in  her  conversation  she 
can  be  of  service  or  dis-service.  It  may  be 
simply  a  good  joke  which  she  is  telling,  but 
if  the  joke  misrepresents  the  school  she  will, 
perhaps,  do  lasting  harm.  If  she  is  hyper- 
critical— and  there  is  nothing  so  contagious 
as  criticism — she  influences  people  in  the 
direction  of  her  thought ;  she  sets  a  current 
of  criticism  in  motion.  A  student  frequently 
gives  vent  to  an  opinion  that  is  only  half- 
baked — it  is  well,  by  the  way,  to  make  zwie- 
back of  all  our  opinions  before  we  pass  them 
around  as  edible — about  courses  and  instruct- 
ors. She  does  not  realize  that  some  opinions 
to  be  worth  anything  must  be  the  result  of 
a  long  process  of  baking,  that  a  nibble  from 
[25] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

the  corner  of  a  four  months'  or  nine  months' 
course  will  not,  however  understandingly  it 
may  be  Fletcherized,  tell  you  whether  the 
course  is  going  to  be  fruit  cake,  meringue  or 
common  soda  crackers.  She  may  think  that 
she  herself  is  so  unimportant  that  what  she 
says  can't  matter,  or  she  may  not  mean  what 
she  says  and  be  merely  letting  off  steam. 
Nevertheless  her  influence  is  exerted.  Some 
one  showed  an  old  lady,  who  had  never  been 
known  to  say  anything  in  the  least  critical  of 
any  human  being,  the  picture  of  a  very  fat 
man  prominent  in  public  life.  She  looked  at 
it  a  moment,  and  then  said  sweetly :  "  My, 
isn't  he  plump  !  "  If  only  there  were  more 
old  and  young  ladies  like  that  dear  soul ! 

There  is  another  kind  of  conversation 
which  may  not  be  ill-natured  and  yet  does 
harm.  Idle  gossiping,  talking  about  things 
that  are  not  worth  while  or  speculating  about 
affairs  which  are  not  our  business  and  of 
which  we  know  little  or  nothing.  Akin  to 
this  is  fashionably  slangy  conversation  con- 
[26] 


The   Girl  and  the  School 

cerning  the  latest  thing  in  books,  magazine 
articles,  trivial  plays.  For  even  the  "  tone  " 
of  school  or  college  conversation  a  student  is 
responsible.  She  can  make  her  school  seem 
cheap  or  cultivated.  The  remarks  which  vis- 
itors overhear  as  they  go  from  room  to  room 
or  from  building  to  building  are  likely  to  in- 
dicate the  "  tone  "  of  an  institution.  A  cata- 
logue may  say  all  it  pleases  about  a  school 
but  in  the  end  the  school  is  judged  by  the 
women  it  educates  and  sends  out,  even  as  a 
tree  is  known  by  its  fruit.  Cultivated,  strong 
women  are  worth  more  in  advertisement  than 
all  the  printed  material  in  the  world,  however 
laudatory. 

When  a  girl  has  received  everything  her 
Alma  Mater  has  to  give,  she  has  no  right  to 
be  untrue  to  its  fundamental  aims  and  ideals, 
or  to  misrepresent  it  in  any  way,  either 
by  what  she  says  or  by  her  own  behaviour. 
Every  student  in  a  large  institution  is  in  a 
sense  a  pensioner.  No  student  can  pay  for 
what  is  given  to  her.  Is  it  not  a  poor  return 
[27] 


A  GirFs  Student  Days  and  After 

for  her  to  be  reflecting  dishonour  rather  than 
honour  upon  her  school  ? 

There  is  a  certain  social  selfishness  in  the 
way  some  students  take  their  opportunities 
for  granted  without  realizing  that  there  are 
thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  girls 
who  would  give  all  that  they  possess  for  a  tithe 
of  such  riches.  Also,  because  of  the  sacrifice 
which  is  being  made  for  them  at  home  girls 
are  selfish  in  taking  their  school  or  college 
life  carelessly.  The  school  has  to  bear  much 
of  the  responsibility  for  the  individual  failure. 
But  of  this  the  student  who  is  failing  rarely 
thinks.  Parents  hold  an  institution  to  blame 
if  it  does  not  do  for  their  child  what  they  ex- 
pect it  to  do,  when  it  may  be  the  girl  who  is 
at  fault. 

In  the  use  she  makes  of  her  portion  of 
inheritance,  in  the  gift  the  school  bestows  on 
the  student,  there  is  a  large  social  question 
involved.  The  school  gives  her  of  its  wealth, 
the  result  of  the  accumulation  of  years  and  of 
the  civic  or  philanthropic  spirit  of  many 
[28] 


The  Girl  and  the  School 

men  and  women.  This,  if  the  girl's  sense  of 
responsibility  is  what  it  should  be,  she  feels 
bound  to  increase  and  hand  on.  It  is  the  old 
noblesse  oblige  under  new  conditions  of  privi- 
lege. 

While  she  is  still  in  school  the  girl  dis- 
charges part  of  this  obligation  by  realizing 
what  is  best  for  her  school  as  an  institution. 
A  college  or  a  big  school  is  no  place  for 
vocal  soloists.  Its  life  is  the  life  of  an  or- 
chestra, of  many  instruments  playing  to- 
gether. The  student's  sense  of  responsibility 
is  shown  by  her  attitude  towards  the  corporate 
government  and  administration  of  the  school. 
Instead  of  regarding  the  laws  of  her  school 
as  natural  enemies,  chafing  against  them, 
making  fun  of  them  or  evading  them  if  pos- 
sible, she  has  a  duty  in  fulfilling  them.  The 
consciousness  of  this  responsibility  is  the  very 
heart  and  soul  of  the  student  self-government 
movement,  for  it  recognizes  not  only  the 
obligation  placed  upon  its  members  by  an 
institution,  but  also  the  wide  influence  one 
[29] 


A  GirFs  Student  Days  and  After 

girl  may  have  on  others.  Student  govern- 
ment knows  that  upper  class  girls  can  deter- 
mine the  spirit  of  the  under  classes.  Even 
looking  at  the  matter  from  the  lightest  point 
of  view,  respectful  and  law-abiding  ways  are 
always  well-bred  ways. 

When  a  student  becomes  an  alumna  she 
can  discharge  a  large  part  of  her  great 
responsibility  by  realizing  that  it  is  not  any 
longer  so  much  a  question  of  what  her  school 
can  give  her  as  of  what  she  can  give  to  her 
school.  One  thing  she  can  always  give  it — 
that  is,  kindly  judgment.  And  she  can  ac- 
knowledge that  her  ideas  of  what  her  Alma 
Mater  is  after  her  own  school-days  may  not 
be  correct.  The  school,  sad  to  say,  is  some- 
times placed  in  the  position  of  the  kindly  old 
farmer  who,  hearing  others  call  a  certain  man 
a  liar,  said :  "  Waal  now,  I  wouldn't  say  he 
wuz  a  liar.  That's  a  bit  harsh.  I'd  say  he 
handled  the  truth  mighty  careless-like. " 
Schools  find  that  some  of  their  alumnae 
handle  the  truth  mighty  careless-like. 
[30] 


The  Girl  and  the  School 

While  she  is  still  a  student  a  girl's  service 
to  her  school  lies  largely  in  her  daily  work, 
the  mental  muscle  she  puts  into  all  that  she 
does  in  the  classroom  and  studies  out  of  it. 
If  because  of  her  and  a  multiple  of  many 
girls  like  her,  the  college  does  not  possess 
that  sine  qua  non  of  all  the  higher  mental 
life,  an  intellectual  atmosphere,  it  is  the  stu- 
dent's and  her  multiple's  fault.  "  You  may 
lead  a  horse  to  water  but  you  cannot  make  it 
drink,"  may  be  an  old  adage,  but  it  would  be 
hard  to  improve  upon  it.  You  may  set  before 
students  a  veritable  Thanksgiving  feast  of 
things  intellectual,  but  if  they  have  no  eager- 
ness, no  appetite  for  them,  the  feast  remains 
untouched.  Energy  and  hunger  of  the  mind, 
not  the  anxious  hosts,  will  in  the  end  decide 
whether  that  feast  is  or  is  not  to  be  eaten. 

The  school  considers  not  only  scholarship 
but  also  the  sum  of  all  that  it  is,  its  culture, 
its  attainment,  its  moral  force,  as  these  ele- 
ments are  expressed  in  its  living  members,  its 
students  and  its  teachers — in  short,  its  ideal- 


A  Girfs  Student  Days  and  After 

ism.  Idealism  is  having  one's  life  governed 
by  ideals,  and  an  ideal  is  a  perfect  conception 
of  that  which  is  good,  beautiful  and  true. 
If  the  girl's  life  is  not  governed  by  ideals, 
how,  then,  can  the  school  hope  to  have  its 
idealism  live  or  grow  ?  Frequently  students 
think  of  the  ideals  of  college  or  school 
as  of  something  outside  themselves,  more 
or  less  intangible,  with  which  they  may 
or  may  not  be  concerned.  Students  cannot 
do  their  institution  a  greater  injury  than  by 
harbouring  such  a  thought,  for  if  their  sense 
of  responsibility  will  only  make  the  idea  of  the 
school  personal,  then  indeed  will  the  school 
be  like  that  house  upon  which  the  rains  de- 
scended and  the  winds  blew  but  it  fell  not, 
for  it  was  founded  upon  a  rock. 


[3*1 


Ill 

FRIENDSHIPS 

HOMESICKNESS  and  friendships, 
how  much  and  how  vivid  a  part 
they  play  in  the  first  year,  or  years, 
of  school  life !  An  old  coloured  physician 
was  asked  about  a  certain  patient  who  was 
very  ill.  "  I'll  tell  you  de  truf,"  was  the  reply. 
"Widout  any  perception,  Phoebe  Pamela 
may  die  and  she  may  get  well ;  dere's  con- 
siderable danger  bofe  ways."  I  will  tell  you 
one  truth  about  the  first  year  of  school  life  : 
friends  there  will  surely  be,  and  homesick- 
ness there  is  likely  to  be, — there  is  "  consider- 
able danger  both  ways." 

Even  if  a  girl  has  never  been  away  from 
home  before,  it  is  possible  that  she  will  not 
suffer  from  homesickness.  It  is  probable, 
however,  that  the  new  surroundings  in  which 
the  girl  finds  herself,  and  the  separation  from 
those  who  are  the  centre  of  her  personal  life, 
will  bring  on  an  attack  of  this  most  painful 

[33] 


A  GirFs  Student  Days  and  After 

malady.  It  takes  time  to  fit  comfortably  into 
the  new  surroundings,  and  meanwhile  every- 
thing is  strange.  Homesickness  is  not  to  be 
laughed  at,  but  it  must  be  less  deadly,  less 
fatal  than  some  people  think  it,  or  there 
would  not  be  so  many  recoveries.  Girls  often 
weep  when  they  enter  school,  and  then  after 
the  long  dreary  years  are  really  over,  lived 
through,  and  the  poor  forlorn  freshman  is 
metamorphosed  into  the  senior,  they  weep 
again.  Is  it  not  strange  that  these  seniors 
who  wept  on  entering  school  should  weep 
also  when  leaving  it  ?  It  looks  in  the  end  as 
if  Phoebe  Pamela  were  sure  to  get  well.  Yet 
the  effort  to  get  well  requires  a  fine  effort  at 
self-control, — an  effort  every  girl  is  the  better 
for  making,  although  it  may  take  everything 
plucky  in  a  girl  to  "  back  up  "  her  intention 
to  remain  in  school.  The  earlier  the  student 
considers  this  question  of  homesickness  the 
better.  Let  her  face  its  possibilities  before  she 
goes  away  from  home,  and  make  up  her 
mind,  if  she  is  attacked,  resolutely  to  over- 
[34] 


Friendships 

come  it.  If  it  comes,  let  her  never  give  up 
the  struggle,  for,  by  giving  in,  she  will  only 
lose  ground  in  every  way,  morally,  socially, 
intellectually.  By  her  cowardice  she  will 
part  with  what  she  can  never  recover  later. 

Many  temptations  follow  in  the  wake  of 
homesickness,  and  the  most  serious  of  all  is 
to  make  friends  too  rapidly.  It  may  be  laid 
down  as  a  rule  that  a  friendship  formed  on 
this  stop-gap  principle,  and  too  rapidly,  is 
not  likely  to  endure.  Such  a  friendship  is 
not  a  sane  or  a  wise  relation,  for  friendship  is 
like  scholarship :  if  it  is  worth  anything  at  all 
it  comes  slowly.  Impulsive,  quickly  forced 
friendships  are  not  wise  investments  ;  the  very 
fact  that  they  come  so  quickly  implies  an  un- 
balanced state  of  idealizing,  or  lack  of  self- 
control.  This  does  not  mean  that  one  is  not 
to  form  pleasant  acquaintances  from  the  very 
beginning  of  the  school  life.  Acquaintance- 
ship always  holds  something  in  reserve  and 
is  the  safest  prelude  to  a  deeper  and  more 
vital  friendship. 

[35] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

There  is  no  denying  that  there  is  great 
temptation  to  violent  admirations  and  attrac- 
tions in  school.  In  the  first  place,  in  school 
or  college  the  girl  is  brought  into  contact  with 
a  large  circle  of  people  who  are  immensely 
interesting  to  her.  The  whole  atmosphere  is 
full  of  novelty,  of  the  unusual.  Some  of 
the  students  and  teachers  whom  she  meets 
for  the  first  time  represent  a  broader  experi- 
ence, it  may  be,  than  her  own  home  life  has 
given  her.  They  are  often  new  types  and 
new  types  are  always  interesting. 

I  shall  say  nothing  of  the  idealism  of 
friendship — it  plays  its  part  in  other  books. 
It  would  seem  sometimes  as  if  almost  too 
much  emphasis  had  been  placed  upon  the 
making  of  friendships  in  school, — friendship 
which  is,  after  all,  but  a  by-product,  the  most 
valuable  it  is  true,  nevertheless  a  by-product 
of  the  life.  Wholly  practical  are  the  tests  of 
friendship  which  I  shall  give.  In  the  first 
place  a  friend  is  too  absorbing  who  takes  all 
of  one's  interest  to  the  exclusion  of  everything 
[36] 


Friendships 


else :  there  should  be  interest  in  other  peo- 
ple, other  activities  as  well  as  in  one's  work. 
Such  a  friendship  can  only  make  a  girl  forget 
for  what  she  has  come  to  school.  The  new 
relation  which  disposes  one  to  look  with  less 
respect  and  affection  upon  one's  own  people 
and  home — and  they,  be  it  remembered,  have 
stood  the  most  valuable  test  of  all,  the  test  of 
time — cannot  be  a  good  influence.  It  may  be 
said  in  general  that  an  association  which  is 
developing  the  less  fine  traits  in  one's  char- 
acter, giving  emphasis  to  the  less  worthy  sides, 
should  be  relinquished  immediately,  even  at 
the  cost  of  much  heartache.  The  heartache 
will  be  only  temporary  ;  the  bad  influence 
might  become  permanent.  On  the  other 
hand,  since  friendship  is  giving  as  well  as 
taking,  one  does  well  to  consider  the  fact  that 
if  one's  own  part  in  it  does  not  tell  for  good, 
there  is  just  as  much  reason  for  stopping  the 
friendship  where  it  is.  Some  of  these  as- 
sociations— and  this  is  a  hard  saying,  I  know 
— which  seem  everything  at  the  time  are 
[37] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

nothing,  as  the  years  will  prove.  A  girl 
idealizes,  and  idealizes  those  who  are  not 
worthy.  Inevitably  the  day  comes  when  she 
laughs  at  herself, — if  she  does  not  do  worse 
and  pity  herself  for  having  been  such  a 
goose. 

Only  a  few  of  the  friendships  made  in 
school  are  destined  to  endure.  One  of  the 
foremost  of  those  that  last  is  founded  on 
similarity  of  interest.  Perhaps  it  is  the  girl 
with  whom  one  has  worked  side  by  side  in 
the  laboratory, — a  relation  formed  slowly  and 
on  a  permanent  basis.  Many  of  the  best  of 
friends  have  come  together  through  com- 
munity of  interests,  and  this  is  a  type  of 
friendship  for  which  men  have  a  greater  gift 
than  women. 

There  is  still  another  type  which  develops 
because  of  some  conspicuously  noble  or  fine 
quality  which  proves  attractive.  Hero  wor- 
ship, this,  which  enlarges  one's  self  through 
the  admiration  given  to  another.  Then  there 
is  the  friendship  based  on  a  purely  personal 
[38] 


Friendships 


attraction,  with  mutual  respect  and  self-respect 
as  its  dedicated  corner-stone.  This  does  not 
mean  that  one  cannot  see  any  faults  in  the 
friend,  or  know  that  one's  own  are  seen, 
without  losing  affection.  There  is  always 
something  flimsy  and  insecure  about  a  friend- 
ship that  simply  idealizes.  Any  relation 
should  be  all  the  stronger  for  a  frank  acknowl- 
edgment of  its  imperfections.  If  a  girl  cares 
enough  she  will  be  willing  to  admit  her  own 
faults  and  wish  to  make  herself  more  worthy 
to  be  a  friend. 

And,  finally,  there  is  what  might  be  called 
the  lend-a-hand  friendship, — the  relation  that 
springs  into  existence  because  of  the  need 
which  is  seen  in  another.  It  is  not  fair  to 
make  a  packhorse  of  one's  friend  or  to  turn 
one's  self  into  the  leaning  variety  of  plant, 
but  it  is  fair  and  wise  and  right,  if  one  is 
strong  enough  to  accomplish  the  end  in 
view,  to  lend  a  hand  to  another  girl  who  is 
not  making  the  best  of  herself. 

Have  a  good  time  but  do  not  swear  eternal 
[39] 


A  Gir/'s  Student  Days  and  After 

allegiance  in  this  first  year  to  anybody,  how- 
ever wonderful  she  may  seem.  Hold  your- 
self in  reserve,  if  for  no  other  reason,  then  on 
account  of  the  old  friends  at  home,  whether 
they  be  kin  or  no-kin,  for  they  have  been 
true.  And  remember,  as  I  have  said  before, 
friendship  is  like  scholarship  and  must  by  its 
nature  come  slowly. 


[40] 


IV 

THE  STUDENT'S  ROOM 

THERE  has  been  a  general  improve- 
ment in  student  rooms,  yet  many 
rooms  to-day  have  altogether  too 
much  in  them :  too  many  pictures,  too  many 
banners,  too  much  furniture,  too  many  hang- 
ings. The  great  fault  of  most  rooms  is  this 
overcrowding.  If  we  were  only  heroic 
enough  to  make  a  bonfire  of  nine-tenths  of 
all  they  contain  we  should  see  suddenly  re- 
vealed possibilities  for  something  like  the 
ideal  room. 

One  serious  and  obvious  objection  to  the 
overcrowding  of  rooms  is  the  hygienic.  I  am 
tempted  to  say  that  this  is  the  most  important 
objection :  indeed,  since  health  is  more  im- 
portant than  wealth,  I  will  say  so.  A  girl 
has  neither  the  time  nor  the  ability  to  keep  so 
many  articles  in  a  room  clean  :  and  while  she 
is  busy  attending  to  her  studies,  some  cher- 

[41] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

ished  ornaments  are  not  only  laying  up  dust 
for  the  future,  as  a  more  regenerate  life  will 
lay  up  treasures,  but  also  breeding  germs,  per- 
haps collecting  the  very  germs  which  will 
take  this  girl  away  from  school  or  college. 
Besides,  bric-a-brac  not  only  gathers  dust  and 
breeds  germs  but  also  wearies  the  nerves. 
It  makes  one  tired  to  see  so  many  things 
about,  and  tired  to  be  held  responsible  for 
them.  Without  realizing  it,  we  resist  the 
amount  of  space  they  occupy  and  in  their 
place  want  the  air  and  sunshine.  Subcon- 
sciously, most  of  us  long  to  get  rid  of  our 
bric-a-brac  and  then  pull  down  the  draperies 
that  keep  out  the  sunlight.  The  simpler  the 
window  draperies  in  a  room,  the  more  easily 
washed,  the  better  and  more  attractive.  For 
wholesome  attractiveness  there  is  no  fabric 
that  can  excel  a  flood  of  warm  sunshine. 
Any  girl  or  woman  who  has  curtains  which 
she  must  protect  from  strong  light  by  draw- 
ing down  the  shades  is  guilty  of  a  household 
sin  whose  greatness  she  cannot  know.  That 


The  Student'' s  Room 

same  sunshine,  freely  admitted,  will  do  more 
to  cleanse  a  house  than  all  the  soap,  all  the 
brooms,  and  even  all  the  vacuum  cleaners 
ever  invented. 

The  so-called  beauty  of  a  room  should 
always  give  way  before  the  hygiene  of  a 
room.  Not  only  should  the  room  be  sensibly 
furnished  so  that  it  may  have  plenty  of  air 
and  light,  but  closets  should  not  contain 
articles  of  furniture  which  belong  where  the 
air  can  reach  them.  There  is  a  difference 
between  a  room  that  is  not  orderly  and  one 
that  is  not  clean.  A  room  that  contains  un- 
clean articles  in  drawers  or  closets,  unclean 
floors,  unclean  rugs  and  hangings  and  un- 
clean walls,  should  not  be  tolerated  for  an 
instant.  If  a  girl  turns  a  combination  bed- 
room and  study  in  school  or  college  into 
a  kitchen,  if  an  ice-cream  freezer  occu- 
pies all  the  foreground  of  this  place  she 
calls  home,  and  chafing-dishes  with  cream 
bottles,  sardine  tins,  cracker  boxes,  paper 
bags  full  of  stale  biscuits,  fruit  skins,  dish- 
[43] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

cloths  and  grease-spotted  walls,  all  the  back- 
ground, it  is  impossible  to  have  a  clean  room 
to  live  in. 

The  Golden  Rule  applies  to  rooms  as  well 
as  to  human  beings  and  should  read,  "  Do 
unto  a  room  as  you  would  it  should  do  unto 
you."  And  not  only  for  the  sake  of  health 
should  this  Golden  Rule  for  Rooms  be  ob- 
served but  also  for  the  sake  of  the  college  or 
school.  The  room  that  belongs  to  us  only 
for  a  time  should  be  as  thoughtfully  cared 
for  as  if  it  were  our  own  personal  property. 
There  is  something  inconsistent,  isn't  there, 
in  educating  a  girl  in  high  thinking  and  fine 
ideals,  if  she  is  willing  to  live  in  a  room  that 
for  uncleanliness  many  a  woman  in  some 
crowded  quarter  of  a  city  would  consider  a 
disgrace?  Such  contradiction  in  mind  and 
surrounding  is  out  of  harmony  with  all  one's 
ideal  for  a  gentlewoman. 

Not  only  beauty  is  restful,  peace-giving 
and  peace-bringing,  but  so,  also,  are  neatness 
and  order.  Orderliness  helps  to  fit  one  for 

[44] 


The  Student* s  Room 

work.  There  is  undoubtedly  some  connec- 
tion between  surroundings  and  one's  mental 
state.  In  themselves  disorder  and  confusion 
are  irritating.  The  sight  of  a  dirty  child 
crying  in  the  doorway  of  an  untidy  house 
suggests  some  connection  between  the 
wretchedness  of  the  child  and  the  squalor 
of  the  home.  I  often  think  of  William 
Morris,  the  great  craftsman  and  charming 
poet,  who  had  much  at  heart  the  happiness  of 
all  people,  especially  the  poor,  and  his  ex- 
clamation, "  My  eye,  how  I  do  love  tidiness  !  " 
To  him,  to  the  artist,  it  was,  as  it  is,  beautiful. 
George  Eliot  had  to  put  even  the  pins  in  her 
cushion  into  some  neat  arrangement  before 
she  could  sit  down  to  write.  Disorder  wastes 
not  only  one's  feelings  and  health,  it  also 
wastes  one's  time,  for  a  lot  of  this  commodity 
may  be  lost  in  looking  for  books,  wraps, 
gloves  and  other  things  which  are  not  put 
away  properly. 

School  ought  to  be  a  training  for  the  life 
afterwards.     That  is  why  we  go  to  schoo/e 
[45] 


A  Girfs  Student  Days  and  After 

isn't  it  ?  Why  should  a  girl  indulge  herself 
in  habits  which  will  make  against  her  use- 
fulness in  the  life  of  the  home  or  in  whatever 
circumstance  she  may  be  ?  There  is  a  certain 
disciplinary  value  in  order.  Every  great 
military  school  has  recognized  this.  Laxness 
in  the  care  of  one's  room  may  mean  the 
habit  of  laxness  in  other  and  more  important 
ways.  Disorderliness  indicates  a  certain 
tendency  in  character,  and  if  a  girl  allows 
that  sort  of  thing  to  go  on  she  is  very  likely 
to  show  it  hi  other  ways.  Untidiness  in  any 
of  one's  personal  habits — and  what  could  be 
more  personal  than  a  room? — should  be 
taken  up  and  corrected  even  as  one  attempts 
to  correct  any  weak  point  in  one's  character. 
Do  you  know  what  is  always — that  is,  if  it 
is  in  it  at  all — the  most  beautiful  thing  in  a 
room?  It  is  something  which  the  Creator 
meant  all  mankind  should  have,  rich  and 
poor,  old  and  young  alike ;  it  is  something 
beyond  the  buying  price  of  any  wealth.  It 
is  the  sunshine,  more  beautiful,  more  valuable 
[46] 


The  Student's  Room 

than  expensive  hangings  that  shut  it  out 
Perhaps  it  is  partly  because  it  is  inexpensive, 
God-given  to  all  people,  that  housewives 
frequently  draw  their  curtains  against  it.  If 
they  had  to  pay  more  for  it  than  for  carpets 
and  hangings,  you  may  be  very  sure  that  a 
great  many  husbands  and  fathers  would  be 
overworking  in  order  that  their  families  might 
buy  a  whole  display  of  sunshine  instead  of 
tapestries. 

Do  you  know  what  is  the  most  helpful 
thing  you  can  have  in  your  room,  the  article 
without  which  you  cannot  live  in  it  at  all,  no 
matter  how  fine  the  rugs  and  bric-a-brac  may 
be?  Air!  Air  is  the  one  thing  which  is 
almost  instantly  and  absolutely  indispensable 
to  human  life,  for  we  breathe  it  in  not  only 
through  our  noses  but  also  all  over  our  skin. 
Every  hundredth  fraction  of  an  inch  of  our 
bodies  is  feeding  upon  air,  and  the  purer  that 
air  and  the  cooler  the  better  and  more  invig- 
orating food  it  provides  for  the  skin  surface 
as  well  as  for  the  lungs.  The  mind,  for  it  is 
[47] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

housed  in  the  body  and  its  tenant,  must  de- 
pend for  its  vigour  or  tone  upon  the  fresh  air 
in  school  or  college  study.  Even  a  very 
good  head  cannot  work  well  set  upon  an 
anaemic  body  which  is  suffocating  for  want 
of  good  clean  air.  If  you  wish  to  do  your 
best  work  and  keep  well,  the  first  thing  to  do 
is  not  to  open  your  books  but  to  open  your 
windows.  After  that  the  books  and  a  reason- 
able number  of  hours  of  continuous  study. 
American  audience  halls,  pull  mans,  ordinary 
coaches  and  public  buildings  of  all  sorts, 
especially  libraries,  are  notoriously  over- 
heated and  unventilated.  It  is  the  intelligent 
American  girl  and  woman  who,  beginning 
with  the  home,  will  correct  this  evil.  The 
schools  are,  on  the  whole,  in  the  forefront  of 
the  fresh  air  movement,  especially  the  public 
schools.  As  every  one  knows,  the  public 
schools  are  establishing  open  air  rooms  for 
their  children  who  need  them.  Although 
there  is  much  to  be  said  about  what  a  room 
should  contain  to  make  it  attractive,  it  should 

[48] 


The  Student" s  Room 

never  be  forgotten  that  sunshine  and  fresh 
air  are  more  beautiful  and  more  priceless 
than  anything  else  which  it  can  hold. 

The  first  object  in  furnishing  a  bare  room 
is  to  make  it  habitable, — that  is  useful.  Take 
the  kitchen,  for  example,  and  usefulness  is 
practically  the  sole  object  in  fitting  it  up. 
And  the  curious  thing  about  it  all  is  that  it 
cannot  help  being  beautiful  in  a  homely, 
motherly  way,  for  it  exemplifies  one  of  the 
strongest  elements  of  all  beauty  and  that  is 
service.  The  kitchen  may  be  a  very  hum- 
ble place  but  if  more  women  would  make  a 
study  of  their  kitchens  and  then  take  thought, 
it  is  likely  that  the  rest  of  their  houses  would 
be  in  much  better  taste.  A  thing  that  is  use- 
ful, even  as  with  some  well-worn  homely  old 
woman  who  has  led  a  good  and  helpful  life, 
always  acquires  a  beauty  of  its  own.  It  may 
be  hard  for  girls  to  see  this  but  it  is  there,  and 
in  time  it  will  be  seen.  Just  as  it  is  essen- 
tially more  beautiful  to  have  a  clean,  strong 
body  rather  than  a  pretty  face  and  a  body 
[49] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

that  is  not  what  it  ought  to  be,  so  is  it  more 
truly  beautiful  to  have  articles  of  furnishing 
in  our  rooms,  in  study  or  kitchen,  that  are  of 
indispensable  genuine  use. 

Take  the  gaudy  ambitious  study  one  girl 
has  made  for  herself.  It  is  defaced  by  the 
presence  of  articles  of  no  value  at  all  in  the 
world  of  needs ;  there  is  nothing  in  it  that  is 
genuinely  beautiful  and  nothing  that  is  sub- 
stantially useful.  The  furniture  is  almost  too 
cheap  to  stand  on  its  own  legs,  and  the  col- 
ours would  certainly  never  wash  and  not 
even  wear.  This  room  is  a  junk-shop  of 
new,  useless,  unattractive  objects  of  no 
virtue, — in  short,  a  most  unpleasant  place 
in  which  to  live.  Have  you  ever  considered 
what  gives  even  the  simplest  clothes  for  dis- 
tinctive occasions  a  beauty  of  their  own  ?  It 
is  fitness.  And  it  is  this  same  fitness  which 
tells  so  much  in  furnishing  a  room.  It  might 
be  said  of  certain  dresses  that  they  "  go  to- 
gether," that  is,  they  are  harmonious,  they 
belong  together,  they  have,  like  some  people, 
[50] 


The  Student's  Room 

the  beauty  of  agreeing  with  themselves,  and 
a  very  desirable  sort  of  beauty  it  is.  Just  as 
clothes  are  an  expression  of  the  people  who 
wear  them,  so  are  rooms  an  expression  of  the 
people  who  live  in  them.  No  well-bred  girl 
cares  for  tawdry,  cheap,  over-ornamented 
clothes.  She  is  made  uncomfortable  even  at 
the  very  thought  of  having  to  wear  such 
things.  She  should  suffer  just  as  much  dis- 
comfort on  the  score  of  a  cheaply  furnished 
(and  by  "  cheap  "  here  I  do  not  mean  inex- 
pensive— whitewash  and  deal  intelligently 
used  may  create  a  beautiful  room),  over- 
crowded and  over-ornamented  study. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  the  room  which  is 
your  school  centre  for  the  time  being  ?  It  is 
an  intimate  place  where  a  girl  may  have  her 
friends  and  good  times  ;  it  is  a  retreat  and  it 
is  a  workshop.  It  is  the  girl's  home  centre 
away  from  home,  the  place  from  which  she 
will  lead  her  life,  in  its  expression  attractive 
or  unattractive,  like  her  or  unlike  her.  To 
intend  that  this  room  in  beauty,  in  cleanli- 
[Si] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

ness,  in  order,  shall  be  the  best  expression 
possible  of  the  girl's  best  self  is  the  ideal  to 
set  for  the  school  study. 

Get  good  materials  and  good  colours. 
They  need  not  be  expensive.  Remember 
that  colours  have  to  go  together  just  as 
furniture  has  to  do  so.  To  have  styles  of 
furniture  that  clash  or  colours  that  do  not 
harmonize  will  negative  any  care  which  the 
student  may  have  taken  in  the  selection  of 
individual  pieces  or  materials.  To  have  too 
much  with  which  to  fill  the  room  is  a  good 
deal  worse  than  not  to  have  enough.  Much 
better  it  is  to  have  a  few  things  which  are 
just  what  they  should  be  than  to  have  too 
many  and  those  undesirable.  To  get  a  desk, 
if  a  girl  can  afford  to  do  so,  that  she  will  be 
glad  to  keep  her  life  long  is  a  good  begin- 
ning, and  a  comfortable  chair  that  will  be 
made  doubly  precious  by  all  the  school  as- 
sociations woven  about  it.  And  let  her  be 
careful  about  pictures  for  her  walls  and  not 
crowd  them  with  cheap  and  "fashionable" 
[52] 


The  Student* s  Room 

trash.  Above  all,  let  her  remember  that 
good  taste,  simplicity,  careful  selection,  will 
do  more  to  assure  her  the  possession  of  an 
attractive  room  than  all  the  money  in  the 
world  can  do. 


[53] 


THE  TOOLS  OF  STUDY  AND  THEIR  USE 

A  GIRL  ought  to  take  up  her  study 
with  the  same  sense  of  pleasure  as 
that  with  which  a  strong  workman 
enters  his  shop,  knowing  his  tools  and  able 
to  use  them.  Having  good  tools  and  know- 
ing them  is  certainly  part  of  the  joy  of  work. 
And  what  are  the  tools  the  student  must  use  ? 
Well,  for  the  average  student,  the  one  that  is 
first  and  most  important  is  Good  Health. 
The  mind  is  not  as  clear  if  the  body  is  not  in 
good  health,  clean  within  and  without. 

The  second  set  of  tools  consists  of  a  differ- 
ent sort  of  equipment  and  apparatus,  tools 
with  which  a  girl  must  become  familiar  and 
which  she  must  know  how  to  use — Books, 
Library \  Laboratory  and  Classroom.  Why 
shouldn't  a  student  be  just  as  able  to  use  her 
books  as  a  carpenter  his  plane  or  saw  ?  One 
couldn't  expect  a  fumbling  carpenter  or  a 
[54] 


The  Tools  of  Study  and  Their  Use 

clumsy  seamstress  to  accomplish  much  work 
or  good  work.  There  are  times  when  a  girl 
need  not  claim  to  know  anything  but  she 
must,  at  least,  know  where  to  find  what  she 
wants  to  know.  This  is  the  first  lesson  in  the 
use  of  books ;  without  knowledge  of  them  or 
love  for  them,  the  student  can't  get  along  at 
all.  And  beyond  this  somewhat  mechanical 
use  of  books  there  is  a  deeper  and  larger 
lesson  to  learn  ;  to  know  that  a  book  is  not 
merely  a  page  of  print  where  information 
may  be  sought  but  that  it  is  a  mirror  in 
which  one  finds  the  world,  its  wisdom,  its  joy, 
its  sorrow,  its  divine  adventures.  Robert 
Southey,  the  friend  of  the  poet  Coleridge,  has 
written  beautifully  on  the  subject  in  a  little 
poem  called  "  His  Books." 

Another  tool  in  the  student's  workshop  is 
Previously  Acquired  Knowledge :  that  is, 
what  one  has  in  one's  mind.  Some  people's 
minds  are  junk-shops.  But  a  junk-shop  is 
better  than  an  empty  shop.  This  previously 
acquired  knowledge,  if  used  rightly,  becomes 
[55] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

the  tool  of  later  courses,  the  servant  of  later 
years.  Our  stored-up  facts — many  of  them 
— have  not  been  an  end  in  themselves.  How 
could  they  be  ?  For  example,  such  things  as 
paradigms  and  formulae  and  long  lists  of 
names  and  dates,  are  tools  pure  and  simple ; 
but  the  student  in  the  workshop  must  have 
them  or  she  will  be  like  a  carpenter  who  had 
much  to  do  but  on  coming  to  his  bench 
found  no  tools  there  and  so  was  idle  all  day. 
A  fourth  tool  for  the  girl  in  her  study — one 
that  cannot  be  deliberately  acquired,  as  in- 
formation or  apparatus  or  even  health  can 
be — is  Experience.  This  is  the  most  valuable 
tool  of  all — one's  experience  of  travel,  with 
people,  in  responsibility,  in  love,  in  joy,  in 
sorrow,  in  any  kind  of  work.  The  girls  who 
are  the  most  interesting  in  the  classroom  are 
the  girls  who  are  not  contenting  themselves 
with  apparatus  alone  but  whose  minds  are 
flexible  with  experience,  who  bring  all  of 
themselves,  their  life,  to  bear  upon  the  work. 
A  certain  well-known  minister  had  prepared 
[56] 


The  Tools  of  Study  and  Their  Use 

a  sermon  for  his  usual  Sunday  engagement, 
but  half  an  hour  before  service  another  text 
came  into  his  mind.  He  could  not  forget  it, 
so  he  jotted  down  notes  and  preached  the 
new  sermon  instead  of  the  one  that  had  been 
prepared.  This  sermon  made  a  great  im- 
pression on  all  who  heard  it,  and  the  minister 
himself  said  of  it  that  some  people  would  de- 
clare that  it  had  been  thought  out  in  half  an 
hour,  but  that  really  he  had  put  fifty  years 
of  his  life  into  it.  The  sharper  and  better  the 
tools,  the  finer  the  character  of  the  work. 
If  experience  has  been  observed  and  retained, 
and  previously  acquired  knowledge  is  ready 
for  service,  and  hand  and  mind  know  how 
to  use  books,  and  the  student  is  in  good 
condition  physically,  then  the  excellence  of 
that  girl's  work  in  the  class  and  out  can  be 
guaranteed. 

And  now  what  are  the  uses  of  the  work 
which  these  tools  can  accomplish  for  us? 
Coleridge  wrote  in  his  poem,  "  Work  With- 
out Hope," 

[57] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

"  Work  without  Hope  draws  nectar  in  a  sieve, 
And  Hope  without  an  object  cannot  live." 

The  only  hope  that  can  last  is  hope  that  is 
not  wholly  centred  in  ourselves,  but  has  some 
thought  for  others  and  our  service  to  them. 
Work  devoid  of  inspiration  and  ideals,  work 
done  merely  for  one's  self,  study  pursued 
with  only  a  degree  as  an  end  or  for  the  sake 
of  "pay"  as  a  teacher,  turns  school  and 
college  into  a  market-place,  a  place  of  barter, 
where  in  exchange  for  so  much  energy  and 
so  much  money  we  may  acquire  a  certain 
position  and  livelihood.  Only  that  work  in 
which  one  has  the  consciousness  of  being,  or 
becoming,  useful  to  others,  brings  joy  that 
will  endure.  What  do  we  think  of  the 
minister  who  is  without  a  sense  of  consecra- 
tion ?  The  responsibility  of  the  student  or 
the  teacher  is  quite  as  large,  the  opportunity 
for  service  quite  as  wonderful.  One  of  our 
greatest  English  poets,  William  Wordsworth, 
exclaimed :  "  I  wish  to  be  considered  as  a 
teacher,  or  as  nothing  ! "  The  calling  of  the 
[58] 


The  Tools  of  Study  and  Their  Use 

teacher,  of  the  student,  has  through  all  time 
been  thought  a  high  one, — one  that  has  drawn 
to  itself  fine  and  unselfish  spirits.  The  life  of 
the  student,  no  matter  how  necessary  to  the 
world  its  market-places  are,  never  has  been 
and  never  can  be  a  life  of  barter,  of  trade. 

The  wealth  that  comes  to  the  student 
should  not  be  an  exclusive  possession.  It 
may  be  bought  at  a  large  price  but  it  can 
never  be  sold.  It  must  be  given  away,  01 
shared,  for  it  is  wealth  which  carries  with  it  a 
sense  of  social  responsibility.  It  is  enjoyed 
for  a  double  purpose,  not  only  for  the  sake 
of  the  happiness  it  brings  to  us  but  also  for 
the  sake  of  the  joy  or  help  it  may  bring  to 
others.  Millions  of  girls  covet  the  opportuni- 
ties that  come  to  a  few  in  school  and  college, 
many  of  them  who  far  more  greatly  deserve 
this  privilege  than  we.  Indeed,  what  hav« 
most  of  us  done  to  merit  the  right  to  all  that 
we  have  ?  The  only  way  in  which  we  can 
show  our  sense  of  justice  is  by  taking  our 
privileges  as  something  to  share  with  others. 
[59] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

The  girl  who  has  health,  pleasant  surround- 
ings and  work  worth  doing,  has  all  a  human 
being  has  a  right  to  expect  She  ought 
always  to  be  happy,  always  rejoicing  in  her 
work  and  always  eager  to  divide  her  wealth 
with  others. 

The  redeeming  feature  of  royalties  has 
been  their  sense  of  responsibility  for  their 
subjects  1  In  great  disasters,  or  calamities, 
their  first  thought  has  been  to  go  to  the  relief 
of  the  people.  The  King  and  Queen  of  Italy 
are  noble  examples  of  this  courage  and  unself- 
ishness. In  America  the  only  "  privileged  " 
class  is  the  highly  educated.  It  is  they 
from  whom  noblesse  oblige  must  be  expected, 
who  will  show  in  all  emergencies  their  sense 
of  responsibility,  who  will  share  all  that  they 
have  with  others.  A  girl  will  be  happy,  she 
will  grow,  she  will  be  a  leverage  power  for 
good  with  those  among  whom  she  lives,  only 
in  so  far  as  she  uses  her  tools  of  knowledge 
in  the  service  of  others,  and  shapes  all  that 
she  does  towards  some  humanly  useful  end. 
[60] 


VI 

THE  JOY  OF  WORK 

IF  one  is  in  good  condition,  the  exercise 
of  any  physical  power  is  a  pleasure.  It 
is  a  pleasure  to  run,  to  sing,  to  dance, 
to  climb  mountains,  to  row,  to  swim ;  it  is  a 
pleasure  to  shout  for  nothing  else  than  for 
the  pure  joy  of  letting  off  surplus  energy. 
In  the  world  of  animals,  the  horse  and  dog, 
to  take  only  two  illustrations,  abound  in  this 
enjoyment  of  physical  energy.  The  horse 
paws  the  ground  and  snorts  and  whinnies 
and  loves  the  fastest  road  pace  you  will  let 
him  take.  The  dog  leaps  in  the  air,  jumps 
fences,  barks,  and  races  around  madly,  some- 
times after  nothing  at  all. 

But  the  highest  power  of  which  human 
beings  are  possessed  is  not  the  power  of  the 
body.  It  is  the  power  of  the  mind.  Yet 
many  of  us  throughout  our  school  and 
college  life  not  only  do  not  wish  to  use  this 
[61] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

power  but  even  rebel  against  it  "  What," 
some  girls  are  saying  to  themselves,  "enjoy 
the  work  of  a  classroom  ?  Who  ever  heard 
of  such  a  thing ! "  Yes,  just  that  And 
if  we  don't  enjoy  the  work  of  a  classroom, 
even  an  indifferently  good  one,  there  is 
something  the  matter  with  us,  or  the  sub- 
ject should  not  have  a  place  on  any  cur- 
riculum. Every  mental  exercise  should  be 
full  of  the  keenest  pleasure,  of  intellectual 
pleasure. 

Our  schools  and  colleges  to-day  are  very 
much  richer  in  the  joy  of  everything  else — 
in  beautiful  surroundings,  in  freer  and  fuller 
athletic  and  outdoor  life,  in  a  more  varied 
and  delightful  social  life— than  they  were 
fifty  or  even  twenty-five  years  ago.  But  it  is 
a  question  whether  the  joy  of  intellectual 
work  has  kept  pace  with  this  joy  of  life  in  its 
other  aspects.  Sometimes  it  almost  seems  as 
if  intellectual  eagerness  were  in  inverse  ratio 
to  the  ease  and  fullness  of  the  opportunities 
we  have.  At  least  many  fair-minded  girls 
[62] 


The  Joy  of  Work 


have  seen  the  predicament  in  which  the 
teacher  is  placed.  The  man  who  makes  a 
vase  for  the  use  and  pleasure  of  others  may 
rejoice  not  only  in  his  own  workmanship  but 
also  in  the  thought  of  the  service  and  delight 
he  is  giving  to  others.  That  is,  his  pleasure 
is  twofold.  The  teacher  who  is  deprived  of 
some  response  of  joy  in  the  work  he  is  doing 
is  a  workman  deprived  of  his  rights.  To 
those  girls  who  are  thinking  of  becoming 
teachers  this  should  be  a  sobering  thought. 

Missionary  teachers,  with  their  students 
eager  to  get  anything  they  have  to  give,  are 
not  to  be  pitied.  Our  schools  and  their 
groups  of  teachers  in  isolated  and  uncul- 
tivated parts  of  the  West  and  South  are  not 
to  be  pitied.  Even  if  education  is  with  them 
shorn  of  much  that  gives  it  charm,  the  oppor- 
tunities that  come  are  prized.  Students  and 
teachers  have  intellectual  joy  in  the  work 
they  do,  and  without  that  the  greatest  uni- 
versity in  the  world  might  as  well,  or  better, 
be  a  district  school,  for  then  the  work  done 

[63] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

would  be  truly  useful.  It  is  the  teacher  who 
has  to  put  much  of  her  time  and  energy  into 
making  a  subject  superficially  attractive 
enough  for  a  student  to  elect  it,  who  is  to  be 
pitied.  A  classroom  full  of  blase  girls  whose 
minds  need  to  be  tickled  before  there  is  the 
least  expression  of  intellectual  mirth  upon 
their  faces,  is  an  ordeal  not  lightly  to  be  met 
except  by  the  professional  joker  or  academic 
tumbler. 

Girls  often  become  impatient  with  them- 
selves, and  that  is  one  reason  why  there  is  so 
little  joy  in  work  for  them.  Think  of  Helen 
Keller  as  a  famous  example  of  this  joy  in 
work  under  the  most  adverse  circumstances. 
What  could  be  greater  than  her  handicap  ? 
Shut  away  from  the  world  by  deaf  ears  and 
blind  eyes  and,  for  a  while,  by  inability  to 
speak,  she  has  nevertheless  shown  a  keenness 
of  pleasure  and  intellectual  acquisition  that 
shames  us  who  have  all  our  senses  in  their 
fullness.  Think  of  her  patient,  unremitting 
delving,  of  the  digging  up,  up,  up  to  get  to 

[64] 


The  yoy  of  ff^ork 


the  light  which  most  human  beings  are  privi- 
leged to  enjoy  with  no  effort  at  all !  The 
mind  that  accepts  this  wealth  with  no 
thought,  no  sense  of  responsibility,  is  a  trifler 
with  riches  that  are  about  us  for  God-given 
purposes.  Think  of  the  way  in  which  Steven- 
son and  John  Richard  Green  and  George 
Eliot  rose  above  their  ill-health  and  did  their 
work  in  despite  of  it !  Perhaps  some  of  us 
have  superb  health  and  have  never  made  any 
conscious  effort  to  use  that  gift  for  a  high 
end. 

Girls  grow  impatient  with  themselves  when 
they  wouldn't  be  impatient  with  a  little  child. 
Yet  the  mind  has  to  be  trained  even  as  we 
train  a  child  ;  it  has  to  be  brought  back  and 
back,  again  and  again  to  the  thing  to  be 
done.  After  the  asking  of  a  simple  question, 
oftentimes  a  whole  class  will  look  confounded, 
because  they  have  some  strange  notion  that 
thinking  means  getting  hold  of  something 
very  far  away  and  difficult  to  grasp.  All 
that  the  first  effort  in  thought  denotes  is 
[65] 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

taking  a  hold  of  that  which  is  nearest  and 
following  it  up.  It  is  the  old  story  of 
Theseus  following  his  clue  of  thread,  the 
slender  thing  in  his  hand,  by  which  he  was 
guided  out  of  the  labyrinth  and  to  the  broad 
sea  of  adventure. 

There  are  difficulties  in  the  doing  of  any 
work  that  is  worth  while.  It  would  be  a 
poor  adviser  who  painted  the  student's  way 
as  a  path  of  roses.  First  and  foremost,  one's 
own  inertia  interferes  with  the  joy  of  work. 
Some  one  has  denned  the  lazy  man  as  one 
who  doesn't  want  to  do  anything  at  all,  and 
the  indolent  man  as  one  who  doesn't  want  to 
do  anything  that  he  doesn't  want  to  do. 
Then,  too,  there  are  certain  allurements  and 
distractions  in  school  life  which  are  a  hin- 
drance to  our  joy  in  an  intellectual  task.  And 
there  is  the  very  natural  disinclination  to  the 
drudgery  involved  in  all  hard  labour.  No 
work  that  is  worth  while  is  without  drudgery. 
Lack  of  encouragement  from  older  people  is 
one  serious  difficulty  some  girls  have  to  meet. 
[66] 


The   "Joy  of  Work 


There  is  a  type  of  older  person  who  is  sure 
that  using  the  mind  will  harm  that  precious 
article.  And,  finally,  there  is  our  inexperi- 
ence, our  own  lack  of  comprehension,  our 
own  purposeless  and  formless  lives. 

Joy  in  work  should  not  be  altogether  con- 
ditional upon  one's  sense  of  ease  or  upon 
what  is  called  success.  Seeming  success  is 
not  always  success.  Often  the  most  valuable 
lessons  come  from  failures.  Robert  Brown- 
ing, the  poet,  speaks  again  and  again  of  the 
noble  uses  of  failure.  Let  me  quote  one 
stanza  from  one  of  his  greatest  poems,  "  Rabbi 
Ben  Ezra"  : 

"  Then,  welcome  each  rebuff 
That  turns  earth's  smoothness  rough, 
Each  sting  that  bids  nor  sit  nor  stand,  but  go  1 
Be  our  joys  three-parts  pain  ! 
Strive  and  hold  cheap  the  strain  ; 
Learn,   nor  account  the  pang;  dare,    never 
grudge  the  throe  !  " 

You  can't  learn  to  walk  if  you  haven't  tumbled 
down  a  good  deal  in  doing  it.  It  is  often 
failure  that  means  ultimate  success.  Of 


A  Girfs  Student  Days  and  After 

course  if  a  girl  keeps  on  saying:  "Oh, 
what's  the  use  ?  "  about  everything  she  does 
and  all  her  failures,  there  isn't  any  use.  In 
weak  moments  that  sort  of  thing  can  be  said 
of  every  great  and  worth-while  experience,  of 
love,  of  joy,  of  sorrow,  of  work.  But  a  girl 
who  allows  herself  to  take  this  attitude  is  a 
"  quitter,"  and  doesn't  know  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  playing  the  game. 

Part  of  the  joy  of  work  consists  in  the  mere 
delight  of  intellectual  exercise,  delight  in 
thinking  a  thing  out.  That  is  the  way 
we  develop  ourselves  mentally,  just  as  we 
develop  ourselves  physically  through  sports. 
The  mind  that  thinks  is  capable  of  deeper 
and  broader  thinking.  Thinking  begets 
thought.  A  muscle  that  is  left  without  exer- 
cise softens  and  finally  atrophies.  The  same 
is  true  of  mental  muscle.  If  this  strength  is 
left  unused  it  is  gradually  lost  and  cannot 
be  recovered.  Mental  concentration,  the 
thought  that  is  so  strenuous  that  everything 
else  is  shut  out,  strengthens  the  mind.  In 
[68] 


The  Joy  of  If^ork 


this  wonderful  old  world  no  new  land  has 
been  discovered  without  physical  effort. 
There  is  no  country  of  the  mind  which  can 
be  entered  without  a  similar  effort. 

And  there  is  another  and  very  important 
joy  in  work — the  sense  that  one  is  being 
equipped  for  the  work  of  the  world,  for  use- 
fulness. The  mere  feeling  that  one's  powers 
are  being  developed  brings  joy  with  it. 
There  is  still  another  joy  which  every  one  of 
us  must  covet — the  sense  of  entering  into  the 
intellectual  riches  of  the  world,  its  wonders  of 
science  and  art  and  letters,  with  the  feeling 
that  we  have  a  part  in  a  great  treasure,  a 
treasure  which,  unlike  gold  and  precious 
stones,  men  have  never  been  able  to  gauge 
or  to  exhaust.  Such  gold  and  silver  as  we 
take  from  that  adventure  cannot  be  lost  or 
stolen  from  us.  It  remains  with  us  to  the 
very  last,  and  with  it  no  life  can  ever  become 
really  poor,  or  dull,  or  old. 


[69] 


VII 

FAIR-PLAY 

FEW  students  realize  how  closely  a  class- 
room resembles  a  commonwealth.    To 
most  of  us  it  seems  a  place  into  which 
we  go  to  have  a  certain  amount  got  out  of 
us,  or  put  into  us.     This  conception  of  the 
classroom  is  unworthy  the  modern  girl  who 
has,  otherwise,  a  fine  understanding  of  the 
meaning  of  team-play,  of  playing  all  together 
for  a  common  end,  a  game  or  a  republic 
united  by  a  tacit  compact. 

Does  the  average  student  feel  responsi- 
bility for  the  game  of  basket-ball  or  lawn 
hockey  which  she  is  playing?  The  first 
thought  of  the  girl  in  answering  this  is  that 
it  was  a  foolish  question  even  to  ask.  Of 
course  she  does.  But  for  her  classroom  ? 
No,  that  is  a  different  sort  of  game,  in  which 
the  responsibility  lies  all  on  the  shoulders  of 
the  instructor.  It  is  a  one-woman  or  a  one- 

[70] 


Fair-Play 

man  game,  and  very  often  the  students  are 
but  spectators,  cheering  or  indifferent,  ap- 
proving or  disapproving.  The  pupil  does 
not  hold  herself  accountable  for  this  game ; 
it  is  the  teacher  who  makes  the  class  "  go," 
who  extracts  from  each  student  the  informa- 
tion bottled  up  in  her,  together,  often,  with  a 
good  deal  of  carbon  dioxide, — a  process  dif- 
ficult and  hard  as  drawing  a  swollen  cork 
out  of  a  soda-water  bottle.  Finally,  with  a 
sort  of  noble  rebound  of  effort,  the  exhausted 
instructor  is  to  put  a  vast  deal  of  information 
back  into  the  girl  before  the  student  claps 
her  book  together  and  rushes  pell-mell  to 
the  next  classroom,  there  to  be  similarly  un- 
corked, if  the  teacher  has  learned  the  art  and 
her  mental  muscle  is  sufficient. 

Such  a  conception  of  a  classroom  is  not 
fair-play.  The  teacher,  like  the  coxswain  of  a 
college  crew,  may  have  rowed  over  the  same 
course  and  she  may  know  it  well  enough  to 
cover  it  in  the  dark ;  she  may  have  won  dis- 
tinction upon  it,  may  be  the  fittest  person  in 

[71] 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

all  the  states  of  the  Union  to  cover  it  again, 
but  if  she  has  not  a  good  or  a  winning  crew 
to  coach,  she  will  never  win  any  race,  even 
the  shortest.  No  instructor  has  shoulders 
equal  to  such  a  multiple  burden  as  coaching, 
steering  and  doing  all  the  rowing,  too.  To 
play  any  classroom  game  in  this  spirit  is  to 
be  dead  weight  for  every  one  else  embarked 
upon  the  same  adventure.  It  is  not  fair-play. 
By  such  an  attitude  on  the  part  of  merely 
one  student  in  the  class,  every  other  student 
associated  with  her  loses,  for  the  girl  who 
will  not  lift  her  own  weight  the  others  must 
carry.  If  that  student  were  playing  in  that 
spirit  on  the  basket-ball  team,  do  you  sup- 
pose that  the  coach,  or  the  captain,  would  let 
her  stay  on  ?  Not  for  a  moment ;  off  she 
would  go  and  very  much  humiliated,  too.  If 
it  is  a  discussion,  the  touch  and  go  of  the 
whole  recitation  will  depend  upon  the  pres- 
ence of  the  team-play,  or  fair-play,  spirit  in 
the  course.  The  instructor  may  do  her  best 
but  if  there  is  no  play-the-game  in  that  class- 
[72] 


Fair-Pi  ay 

room,  she  might  just  as  well  fold  up  her  tent, 
like  the  proverbial  Arab,  "  and  silently  steal 
away."  It  is  not  that  any  recitation  need  be 
a  brilliant  affair — if  most  of  them  depended 
upon  that  for  existence  they  would  scarcely 
exist  at  all — but  there  must  be  an  honest, 
earnest,  responsible  effort  to  make  the  best 
of  the  hour.  Good  will  inevitably  come  from 
the  clarifying  effort  to  express  thought,  and 
the  leading  from  thought  to  thought  as  the 
work  goes  forward. 

The  basket-ball  team  cannot  win,  or  even 
play,  unless  all  the  members  are  playing  to- 
gether. Each  one  is  needed  despite  the  fact 
that  she  may  not  be  one  of  the  chief  or  best 
players.  Just  so  does  the  class  need  all  its 
students.  If  a  girl  is  only  average,  it  is  not 
fair-play  for  her  to  sit  back  and  do  nothing ; 
neither  is  it  fair-play  for  her  to  monopolize 
the  attention  if  she  happens  to  be  more  than 
commonly  able.  It  is  not  fair-play  to  laugh 
at  the  girl  who  is  at  a  disadvantage,  or  to 
appear  bored.  It  is  unfair  to  the  individual, 
[73] 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

to  the  classroom  in  general  and  to  the  in- 
structor. The  least  she  can  do  in  this  class 
game  is  to  give  her  whole  and  her  courteous 
attention. 

Think  of  all  the  practice  games  in  which 
the  average  athletic  team  takes  part.  What 
can  be  said  for  the  student  who  comes  into 
the  classroom  unprepared  to  lift  her  own 
weight,  unprepared  to  help  others  ?  When 
one  comes  to  think  about  it  from  the  fair- 
play  point  of  view  there  is  nothing  to  be  said 
for  her.  Nor  is  it  fair-play  for  a  girl  to  allow 
herself  to  get  into  such  a  state  physically 
that  she  is  unable  to  study.  How  often  and 
often  have  fudge-heads — due  to  an  applica- 
tion to  too  much  sugar  and  not  to  books — 
sitting  row  after  row  killed  a  school  or  even 
a  whole  college  1  Before  a  class  tempered 
by  fudge  and  not  by  wholesome  outdoor  liv- 
ing and  conscientious  devotion  to  work,  the 
teacher  might  better  put  away  her  notes  and 
close  her  book.  Nothing  can  happen  through 
or  over  that  barricade  of  fudge-heads. 

[74] 


Fair-Play 


And  it  is  not  fair-play  to  cram  because  of 
time  lost,  or  for  any  other  cause.  The  only 
end  of  cramming  is  that  the  student  soon 
forgets  all  that  has  been  learned.  Alone  by 
normal,  slow  acquisition  and  all  the  associa- 
tions formed  in  such  learning  can  informa- 
tion come  to  us  to  stay.  It  may  not  be 
particularly  wicked  to  cram  if  one  has  plenty 
of  time  to  waste,  but  it  is  foolish  unless  one 
has. 

There  is  a  kind  of  gossip  in  which  a  girl 
takes  part,  made  up  of  snap-shot  judg- 
ments of  the  classroom,  idle  carping  about 
some  little  unimportant  point,  expression  of 
wounded  vanity  and  unfair  talk,  which  may 
mean  a  tremendous  loss  of  prestige  for  a 
really  admirable  course;  it  may  mean  that 
girls,  who  would  naturally  go  into  it  because 
of  their  liking  or  gift  for  the  work,  do  not  go 
or  go  in  a  critical  and  unsympathetic  atti- 
tude. If  there  is  a  complaint  to  be  made 
about  any  course  it  should  be  made  to  the 
responsible  person  concerned,  and  that  is 
[75] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

usually  the  teacher.  Anything  else  is  not 
fair- play.  In  the  classroom  the  instructor  is 
the  "  coach  "  of  the  game  and  she  is  the  per- 
son with  whom  to  talk.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  if  a  girl  is  putting  nothing  into  a  course 
she  cannot  expect  to  get  anything  out  of  it,  or 
to  complain  because  things  do  not  "  go." 
If  she  wants  them  to  "  go  "  why  does  she  not 
help,  and  have  the  profit  of  taking  something 
away  from  the  work  as  interest  on  her  effort  ? 
A  girl  gets  dividends  only  from  work  into 
which  she  has  put  some  brain-capital. 

And  the  people  at  home  ?  Is  it  fair-play 
to  them,  when  they  are  making  sacrifices  of 
money  or  of  happiness  to  keep  the  daughter 
at  school,  for  her  not  to  put  good  work  into 
her  study  and  play  her  part  faithfully  in  the 
classroom  game?  So  many  things  have  to 
be  taken  into  consideration  of  which  we  are 
not  likely  to  think.  There  is  the  girl  her- 
self, the  other  girls  with  whom  she  is  work- 
ing, the  instructor,  the  people  at  home,  the 
institution  that  is  providing  an  expensive 
[76] 


Fair-Play' 

equipment  or  plant  through  the  philanthropic 
efforts  of  others  or  the  taxation  of  the  public. 
If  the  girl  does  not  play  her  part  fairly,  there 
is  a  rather  big  reckoning  against  her,  is  there 
not? 


[77] 


VIII 

THE  RIGHT  SORT  OF  LEISURE 

THE  right  sort  of  leisure  ought  to  help 
as  much  in  the  development  of  the 
girl  as  the  right  sort  of  work.  If  it 
is  leisure  worthy  the  name,  it  will  bring 
refreshment ;  it  will  not  leave  one  physically 
and  mentally  jaded.  Neither  mind  nor  body 
should  ever  be  exhausted  because  of  the  way 
in  which  freedom  has  been  used.  Leisure  is 
as  important  to  work  as  work  is  to  leisure.  A 
person  who  has  not  worked  cannot  appreciate 
freedom,  while  the  one  who  has  had  no 
leisure  is  not  best  fitted  for  work.  "  All 
work  and  no  play  makes  Jack  a  dull  boy  ; " 
it  is  just  as  true  that  it  makes  Jill  a  dull  girl. 
The  girl  who  works  all  the  time,  not  realizing 
the  importance  of  free  moments,  becomes 
fagged  in  body  and  mind.  She  is  a  tool  that 
is  dull,  and  would  do  well  to  remember  that 
even  a  machine  is  better  for  an  occasional  rest. 

[78] 


The    Rig/it  Sort  of  Leisure 

Some  mistaken  ideas  about  leisure  have 
grown  up,  making  it  difficult  to  say  anything 
on  this  subject  without  being  misunder- 
stood. Stories — whole  books  of  them — 
about  "  spreads "  and  more  or  less  lawless 
escapades  in  school  and  college,  have  given 
girls  and  other  people,  too,  the  impression 
that  this  is  the  sort  of  thing  school  leisure  is. 
Nothing  could  be  farther  from  the  truth. 
Midnight  feasts  may  occur  in  school,  and 
most  of  us,  unless  we  are  too  good  to  be 
average  girls,  have  taken  part  in  them.  But 
such  stories  are  vicious,  for  they  misrepre- 
sent the  life  by  suggesting  that  eating  inferior 
and  unwholesome  food  is  the  real  freedom 
most  girls  desire.  There  is  something  repul- 
sive in  the  very  thought.  Feasts  that  leave 
a  girl  with  a  coated  tongue  and  a  dull  head 
and  Monday  "  blues  "  do  not  fairly  represent 
school  or  college  leisure.  Good  times  that 
interfere  with  good  work  have  no  place  in 
ideally  free  hours.  But,  indeed,  the  odours 
from  the  chafing-dishes  do  suggest  that  some 
[79] 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

of  the  girls  are  trying  to  put  into  literal  ex- 
ecution the  wish  of  a  great  German  professor 
in  Oxford.  The  professor,  eager  to  try  a  dish 
he  saw  on  the  hotel  bill  of  fare,  but  with  his 
English  and  German  verbs  not  quite  disen- 
tangled, said  to  the  waiter,  "  Hereafter  I  vish 
to  become  a  Velsh  Rabbit."  Perhaps  be- 
coming a  Welsh  rarebit  represents  the  height 
of  some  girls'  ideals,  but  this  is  hard  to  be- 
lieve. 

The  possession  of  leisure  depends  to  a 
great  extent  upon  the  will  power.  The  girl 
who  has  never  learned  to  say  "  No,"  who  has 
no  power  of  selection,  cannot  expect  to  have 
any  hours  for  her  own  use.  She  is  quarry 
for  every  idle  suggestion,  every  social  en- 
gagement, every  executive  "job"  which 
pursues  her.  The  girl  who  engages  all  her 
time  socially  cannot  have  a  sense  of  leisure, 
for  she  turns  her  playtime  into  but  another 
schedule,  to  be  met  as  inexorably  as  her 
academic  courses.  Her  days  become  a  for- 
midable array  of  "  dates,"  often  stretching 
[80] 


The    Right  Sort  of  Leisure 

ahead  for  weeks.  Even  if  girls  are  not  de- 
termined to  have  it  for  themselves,  they 
should  give  to  others  some  opportunity  for 
freedom,  and  should  respect  their  possible 
desire  for  solitude.  The  girl  who  engages 
or  annexes  every  particle  of  time,  her  own  or 
that  of  some  one  else  with  whom  she  comes 
in  contact,  is  making  leisure  an  impossibility. 
The  girl  who  leaves  no  margin  cannot  hope 
for  even  the  spirit  of  freedom. 

Many  students  excuse  themselves  for  much 
executive  work  in  school  and  college  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  done  in  their  leisure.  That 
girl  is  a  goose  who  allows  herself  through 
any  sense  of  self-importance,  or  irreplaceable 
usefulness,  to  be  so  involved  in  executive 
work  that  all  other  aspects  of  her  school  life 
are  slighted.  If  she  refuses  to  be  swamped 
by  such  "jobs"  she  can  have  the  happiness 
of  reflecting  that  probably  some  girls  who 
need  the  training  far  more  than  she  does  are 
doing  the  work.  To  every  girl  will  come  the 
opportunity  right  along  for  "  managing "  ; 
[81] 


A  Girl '  s  Student  Days  and  After 

club  and  social  work  will  bring  it,  and  a  good- 
sized  family  will  bring  it  as  nothing  else  can. 
But  school  leisure  she  will  not  have  again. 
The  whole  aim  of  the  school  is  to  enrich  the 
lives  of  its  students,  and  it  knows  all  too  well 
that  that  student  who  does  not  keep  for  herself 
the  leisure  upon  which  body  and  mind  and 
soul  must  feed  is  indeed  poor. 

There  is  one  way  in  which  leisure  is  very 
generally  misspent  in  school — and  alas,  out- 
side, too ! — not  in  managing  one's  own  af- 
fairs, but  in  managing  and  discussing  the 
affairs  of  others.  At  such  times  the  remarks 
may  be  superlatively  pleasant,  but  they  are 
more  often  superlatively  disagreeable.  It 
may  be  said  with  truthfulness  that  they  are 
almost  never  moderate  or  just.  Everything 
is  all  black  or  all  white,  with  no  gray.  It 
makes  one  think  of  the  little  girl  with  a  curl 
in  the  middle  of  her  forehead  : 

"  When  she  was  good,  she  was  very,  very  good, 
And  when  she  was  bad,  she  was  horrid." 

But,  alas  1  the  poor  wretches  discussed  are  not 

[82] 


The    Right  Sort  of  Leisure 

allowed  even  the  natural  and  somewhat  happy 
human  alternation  between  badness  and  good- 
ness. No,  indeed,  they  are  monsters  of  a 
desperate  character — they  may  at  the  mo- 
ment be  broken-heartedly  conscious  of  their 
own  faults — or  they  are  shining  six-winged 
angels.  And,  woe  1  this  sort  of  thing  comes 
almost  as  hard  upon  the  angels.  They  can't 
endure  it ;  so  much  goodness  breaks  down 
their  wing  arches,  and  the  glorious  ones 
crumple  together  like  tissue-paper. 

And  upon  the  girls  busily  engaged  in 
creating  angels  of  loveliness  and  gargoyles 
of  ugliness,  this  sort  of  conversation  works 
havoc.  It  does  not  invigorate  them,  it  does 
not  inspire  them.  It  belittles  their  minds — 
thank  fortune,  that  making  kindling  wood  of 
the  characters  of  other  people  does  do  this  ! 
— and  stunts  their  finer  feelings.  This  sin, 
that  they  "  do  by  two  and  two,"  they  pay  for 
one  by  one.  Gentle  and  considerate  feelings 
are  lost,  time  is  wasted,  a  vicious  habit, — al- 
most no  habit  is  more  vicious, — is  acquired. 
[83] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

Such  gossip  can  never  become  a  pure  enjoy- 
ment ;  it  remains  at  the  best  an  ignoble,  dis- 
creditable excitement.  Rolling  these  sweet 
morsels  under  their  tongues,  a  taste  for  ill- 
natured  or  exaggerated  comment  fixes  itself 
in  their  mouths.  Even  if  they  have  con- 
sciences that,  like  good  mothers,  will  occasion- 
ally wash  their  mouths  out  with  soap,  they 
retain  the  disturbing  memory  of  unkind, 
coarse,  or  foolish  words. 

Yet  school  should  be  the  last  place  in 
which  to  indulge  in  idle  talk.  Such  indul- 
gence is  against  all  the  idealism  of  student 
life.  Idle  or  meddlesome  talk  never  helps 
any  one,  either  the  one  who  talks  or  the  one 
who  is  discussed.  If  you  have  anything  to 
say  about  other  people,  and  if  going  to  them 
will  help  you,  the  only  friendly  thing  to  do — 
it  is  not  an  easy  thing — is  to  speak  to  the 
people  concerned.  If  we  really  knew  how  to 
put  ourselves  in  other  people's  places,  no  un- 
kind, unfriendly  words  would  ever  be  spoken 
again.  There  would  be  things  hard  to  bear 
[84] 


The    Rig/if  Sort  of  Leisure 

said — rebuke  or  reproof  are  never  easy  to  re- 
ceive— but  nothing  unfriendly.  Think  how 
idle,  ill-natured  talk  flows  around  the  world, 
and  then  think  what  a  different  world  it 
would  be  if  there  were  none  of  it  1  It  is  to 
human  life  what  the  blights,  the  scales,  the 
insect  pests  are  to  tree  and  flower.  Fortu- 
nately, as  people  grow  older  they  come  to 
think  themselves  less  infallible,  and  as  they 
grow  wiser  they  become  more  tender  and 
more  lenient  in  their  judgments. 

In  companionship  whose  leisure  interests 
are  good  there  is  a  sense  of  freedom  filled  full 
and  running  over,  of  minds  and  hearts  doubly 
rich,  of  good  times  doubly  jolly.  But  on  the 
whole,  girls  have  too  little  absolute  solitude  ; 
there  is  scarcely  a  girl  in  twenty,  except  the 
"  dig,"  who  is  alone  at  all.  One  trouble  with 
dormitory  school  life  is  that  it  fosters  leisure- 
wasting  and  time-wasting  "gang"  habits. 
A  girl  so  surrounded  never  wants  to  be  alone 
a  moment,  either  indoors  or  out.  With  such, 
the  blessing  and  blessedness  of  solitude  should 
[85] 


A  Girr s  Student  Days  and  After 

be  learned,  for  solitude  rightly  used  makes 
strong  men  and  women. 

The  woman  who  has  leisure  has  a  grasp 
upon  time,  is  master  of  it  instead  of  being 
mastered  by  it.  It  is  the  girl  whirled  around 
in  a  squirrel  cage  of  pointless  weekly  and 
Sunday  engagements  who  is  oppressed  and 
mastered  by  her  lack  of  freedom.  And  then 
there  is  the  hard-pressed  future ;  we  must  lay 
up  some  leisure  for  that.  The  time  when 
one  is  most  hurried  is  the  time  when  one 
most  needs  the  sense  of  freedom.  The  story 
of  the  old  Quaker  lady  who  had  so  much  to 
do  she  didn't  know  where  to  begin,  and  so 
took  a  nap,  is  profoundly  full  of  wisdom. 
When  the  old  lady  woke  up  she  found  she 
had  plenty  of  time  after  all,  not  because  she 
had  done  anything  but  because  she  had 
come  again  into  a  leisurely  frame  of  mind. 

Leisure  means  neither  a  blank  mind  nor 

an  empty  hand.     It  means  a  holiday  taken 

with  an  eager  mind,  with  eyes  keen  in  their 

delight  and  knowledge,  with  hands  capable 

[86] 


The    Right  Sort  of  Leisure 

of  some  beauty  or  some  use.  All  of  us  have 
leisure  to  think,  but  not  all  of  us  think. 
Some  of  us,  if  friends  come  in  unexpectedly, 
will  quickly  pick  up  something  and  pretend 
to  be  busy.  When  Watt  sat  by  the  fire 
watching  the  steam  from  the  teakettle  lift 
the  lid,  he  was  not  precisely  idle.  The 
powerful,  indispensable  steam-engine  was 
the  result.  One  reason,  aside  from  all  re- 
ligious considerations,  why  we  need  a  quiet 
Sunday,  is  that  we  may  have  that  sense  of 
freedom  which  feeds  mind  and  body,  and 
even  the  crumbs  of  whose  profitableness 
have  made  the  world  rich  in  great  inven- 
tions, in  great  pictures,  in  wonderful  books. 


[87] 


IX 
THE  OUTDOOR  RUNWAY 

AFTER  Nebuchadnezzar  came  in  from 
eating  grass  there  had  taken  place 
in  that  potentate  a  great  change  for 
the  good.  One  of  the  factors  in  this  better- 
ment may  have  been  the  grass  itself.  The 
grass-cure  has  always  been  popular  and 
always  will  be,  for  it  is  just  as  good  for  the 
tired  mind  as  it  is  for  the  tired  body. 
Nowadays  every  big  school  and  every 
college  provide  a  grass-cure  for  students 
who  are  out  at  elbows  with  their  nerve 
sleeves,  or  who  have  not  sufficient  muscle  to 
make  them  fit,  or  who  are  overworking  or 
need  toning  up  in  any  way.  There  is  more 
and  more  recognition  of  the  fact  that  a 
school  course  which  is  taken  at  the  expense 
of  health  is  not  worth  having.  And  side  by 
side  with  this  wholesome  admission  has  come 
a  great  awakening  in  the  last  fifteen  years  to 
[88] 


The   Outdoor  Runway 

the  curative  value  of  the  outdoor  runway, 
whether  that  runway  be  a  field  track, 
energetic  walking  in  a  park  or  campus,  or  a 
cross  country  run. 

Some  girls — and  there  are  more  girls  of 
this  type  than  there  are  boys — put  in  their 
outdoor  life  as  a  stop-gap.  It  is  inconceiv- 
able that  this  should  be  true,  yet  it  is  true. 
Apathetically  the  students  have  exercised 
sixty  minutes,  considering  this  minimum 
quite  sufficient.  Not  a  particle  of  zest  do 
they  reveal  in  the  exercise  taken.  They  do 
not  seem  to  know  or  they  do  not  care  that 
the  fields  and  woods  should  be  full,  not  only 
of  health  and  all  that  goes  with  it,  including 
success,  but  also  of  the  best  of  friends  who 
all  have  their  good  points  worthy  of  notice 
and  imitation,  in  quick  leap,  cheerful  voice 
and  blithe  song.  What  are  sixty  minutes  in 
this  great  outdoor  runway  ?  Not  a  tithe  of 
the  twenty-four  hours  and  at  best  only  half 
of  what  the  minimum  should  be.  Exercise 
should  be  taken  even  if  nothing  else  in  the 
[89] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

school  life  is.  And  I  say  this  advisedly,  for 
health  is  the  basis  on  which  not  only  the 
future  of  the  woman's  life  must  depend  but 
also  that  of  the  race.  Good  health,  the  in- 
heritance of  it,  its  maintenance  and  increase, 
neither  the  girl  nor  her  parents  can  ever  hold 
as  too  sacred  a  trust.  That  it  is  a  sacred 
trust  the  schools  are  recognizing  more  and 
more,  and  provisions  are  being  made,  espe- 
cially in  the  public  schools,  for  the  defective 
in  health  as  well  as  for  the  strong.  The  out- 
door school,  at  first  an  object  that  attracted 
universal  attention,  is  now  being  taken  quite 
for  granted.  Foolish  the  girl  who  does  not 
learn  to  take  the  outdoor  runway  for  granted, 
too,  and  go  out  to  it  in  high  spirits  to  learn 
its  wisdom,  to  take  part  in  its  joys  and  to 
receive  its  health. 

It  may  be  accepted  as  a  new  axiom — the 
more  exercise  the  less  fool.  Strong,  able 
muscles,  steady  nerves  (and  let  us  remember 
that  nerves  depend  for  their  tone  on  the 
muscular  condition),  a  clean  skin  open  at  all 
[90] 


The  Outdoor  Runway 

its  pores  and  doing  its  eliminative  work 
thoroughly,  and  clean  strong  vitals  make  up 
the  kind  of  beauty  within  the  reach  of  all 
womanhood,  and  the  physical  beauty  which 
she  should  most  desire.  The  day  is  coming 
when  our  ideal  of  what  is  physically  perfect 
— not  spiritually,  for  Christianity  has  carried 
us  beyond  anything  that  Greece  ever  knew 
— will  be  more  like  the  Greek  in  its  entirety, 
its  emphasis  upon  the  harmony  of  the  whole 
body.  The  body  is  a  mechanism  to  be  ex- 
quisitely cared  for — self-running,  it  is  true, 
and  yet  in  need  of  intelligent  attention. 
Think  of  the  care  an  engineer  gives  his 
engine,  and  it  is  by  no  manner  of  means  so 
wonderfully  and  so  intricately  fashioned  as 
these  bodies  of  ours  on  which  our  happiness, 
our  working  ability,  even  our  very  goodness 
depend.  Health  as  a  safeguard  to  one's 
whole  moral  being  is  coming  into  more  and 
more  recognition,  and  not  only  as  a  safe- 
guard but  also  as  a  cultivator  of  all  that  is 
best  in  us  spiritually.  There  are  people  very 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

ill,  or  permanent  invalids,  whose  great  victory 
it  is  to  be  among  the  saints  of  the  earth,  but 
that  it  is  easier  to  be  good  when  one  is  well 
no  one  will  deny.  Every  big  school  has  now 
its  class  or  classes  in  corrective  or  medical 
gymnastics,  in  which  stooping  shoulders, 
ewe  necks,  curved  spines,  flat  insteps,  small 
waists  and  narrow  chests  are  rectified  as  far 
as  possible  in  the  limited  hours  of  the  school 
days. 

The  time  is  coming  when  parents  will  con- 
sider it  a  disgrace  to  allow  their  children  to 
be  physically  undeveloped.  The  physician, 
always  in  advance  of  the  community  for 
which  he  cares,  sees  how  grave  in  moral  or 
intellectual  import  physical  defects  may  be. 
The  educational  world,  alive  to  new  messages 
for  the  reconstruction  of  its  educational  ideal, 
begins  also  to  place  more  and  more  emphasis 
upon  the  physical  care  and  development  of 
its  students — and  not  by  any  manner  of  means 
for  physical  reasons  only  but  because  the 
whole  girl  or  the  whole  boy  is  better  spirit- 
[92] 


The  Outdoor  Runway 

ually  and  mentally  for  having  a  body  that  is 
strong  and  well.  The  whole  being  keeps 
better  time,  just  as  a  watch  does,  for  having 
clean  works.  No  one  has  the  right  to  shut  out 
the  fresh  air  or  the  sunshine  ;  no  girl  should 
remain  undeveloped  physically  through  lack 
of  exercise  when  she  could,  through  exercise, 
make  herself  strong.  Even  to  abuse  her  feet, 
the  important  centre  of  many  important 
nerves,  by  tight  shoes,  is  wrong ;  so  is  it  to 
rack  her  spine  and  upset  or  throw  out  of 
position  all  the  delicate  and  wonderfully 
fashioned  organs  of  the  abdominal  cavity  by 
the  wearing  of  high  French  heels.  Un- 
doubtedly, however,  American  motherhood 
and  girlhood  represent  something  more  and 
more  intelligent ;  indeed,  in  physical  culture 
women  are  beginning  to  keep  step  with  men, 
and  it  is  upon  this  fact  that  school  and  col- 
lege depend  in  their  splendid  efforts  to  make 
the  sum  of  feminine  vitality,  despite  the  pres- 
sure of  modern  civilization,  plus  rather  than 
minus. 

[93] 


A  Girl 's  Student  Days  and  After 

Tfie  more  exercise  the  less  fool ;  and  it  is 
worth  remembering  that  the  daily  exercise, 
the  plunge  into  cool  or  clean  air,  as  well  as 
the  plunge  into  water,  is  a  wit  sharpener,  and 
will  do  more  for  a  student  in  the  long  run 
than  "  digging  "  possibly  can.  Mens  sana 
in  corpore  sano  may  be  an  old  saying  but  it  is 
still  new  enough  to  be  repeated  with  vigour  to 
certain  people.  Let  us  get  out-of-doors  and 
have  our  wits  sharpened  and  see  more,  and  do 
more,  and  be  more  1  No  one  can  perma- 
nently starve  her  whole  body  for  the  want  of 
fresh  air  and  exercise,  which  are  the  body's 
birthright,  and  expect  to  have  a  clear  head  or 
do  well-balanced  and  helpful  work  in  the  home, 
or  in  school,  or  in  some  wage-earning  career. 
If  the  girl  attempt  this  impossibility  she  will 
be  like  the  frog  which  jumped  up  one  foot 
and  fell  back  two.  She  will  get  to  the  bottom 
soon  enough,  the  bottom  of  the  class  or  the 
bottom  of  her  health  account,  but  she  will 
never  get  to  the  top  of  anything.  Any  suc- 
cess, if  by  chance  it  should  come  to  her,  rest- 
[94] 


The  Outdoor  Runway 

ing  on  a  basis  of  ill  health  or  indifference  to 
her  physical  fitness  for  living  and  working, 
will  be  like  the  house  built  upon  the  sands. 
Before  the  girl  is  twenty,  before  she  is  twenty- 
five — the  earlier  the  better — she  should  rec- 
ognize this  fact  and  begin  to  establish  her 
life  on  the  bed  rock  of  health. 

It  is  true,  too,  ninety-nine  times  out  of  a 
hundred,  that  the  country  boy  and  the  coun- 
try girl  are  more  resourceful  than  their  city 
cousins.  Out-of-doors  they  have  had  to  use 
their  wits  and  have  not  been  spoiled  by  all 
the  appliances  of  city  life.  Out-of-doors,  too, 
they  have  made  invaluable  friendships  with 
bird  and  squirrel  and  rabbit  and  deer,  friend- 
ships whose  intelligent  wood-life  has  taught 
them  much.  Self-reliance  is  one  of  the  lessons 
of  the  outdoor  runway ;  and  wisdom  and  in- 
spiration come  from  it  when  they  are  needed. 
About  this  truth  the  work  of  the  poet  Words- 
worth is  one  long  poem.  Again  and  again 
he  writes  of  the  perfect  woman  shaped  by  the 
influences  of  nature.  Of  her  he  says : 
[95] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

"  Three  years  she  grew  in  sun  and  shower; 
Then  Nature  said,  ( A  lovelier  flower 

On  earth  was  never  sown ; 
This  child  I  to  myself  will  take ; 
She  shall  be  mine,  and  I  will  make 

A  lady  of  my  own. 

"  «  Myself  will  to  my  darling  be 

Both  law  and  impulse  :  and  with  me 

The  girl  in  rock  and  plain, 
In  earth  and  heaven,  in  glade  and  bower, 
Shall  feel  an  overseeing  power 

To  kindle  and  restrain. 

"  '  She  shall  be  sportive  as  the  fawn 
That  wild  with  glee  across  the  lawn 

Or  up  the  mountain  springs  ; 
And  hers  shall  be  the  breathing  balm, 
And  hers  the  silence  and  the  calm 

Of  mute,  insensate  things. 

"  '  The  floating  clouds  their  state  shall  lend 
To  her  ;  for  her  the  willow  bend ; 

Nor  shall  she  fail  to  see 
Even  in  the  motions  of  the  storm 
Grace  that  shall  mould  the  maiden's  form 

By  silent  sympathy. 

"  «  The  stars  of  midnight  shall  be  dear 
To  her ;  and  she  shall  lean  her  ear 

In  many  a  secret  place 
Where  rivulets  dance  their  wayward  round, 
And  beauty  born  of  murmuring  sound 

Shall  pass  into  her  face  ! '  " 

No  one  can  afford  to  neglect  all  the  spirit- 
[96] 


The  Outdoor  Runway 

ual  influence  of  nature,  and  the  only  way  to 
receive  it  is  to  go  to  nature.  Purity  of  mind, 
a  clean  conception  of  God's  creative  plan,  a 
more  active  intellectual  life  are  all  there  for 
the  girl  who  will  seek  them.  She  cannot  af- 
ford not  to  go  back  to  nature  for  these  helps, 
for  every  woman  is  in  some  sense  a  burden 
bearer,  and  she  must  needs  know  all  she  can 
of  what  life  means  in  order  to  bear  these 
burdens  well. 

There  are  various  kinds  of  outdoor  life, 
some  one  of  which  is  within  reach  of  every 
human  being,  even  if  they  are  cripples. 
Probably  most  girls  when  the  outdoor  life  of 
school  and  college  is  spoken  of  think  that 
athletics  is  meant.  That  is  one  part  of  the 
outdoor  runway,  and  since  it  is  provided  in 
every  school,  and  insisted  upon,  but  little 
about  it  need  be  said.  It  is  doing  its  work 
with  more  and  more  inspiration,  as  the  re- 
sponse to  its  ideals  comes  in.  And  it  does 
something  more  in  every  well-equipped 
school  than  merely  make  a  girl  use  her  legs 
[97] 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

and  arms  :  it  gives  her  a  large,  sane  ideal  of 
health  and  provides  her  with  the  means  of 
keeping  well.  There  is  no  more  useful  pro- 
fession for  the  woman  seeking  one  that  is 
useful  as  well  as  remunerative  than  physical 
culture. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  the  outdoor  run- 
way of  which  less  is  said.  I  mean  garden- 
ing, or  the  care  of  live  stock  of  some  kind, 
or  bee  culture.  This  is  practical  remuner- 
ative work  which  for  the  girl  living  at  home 
and  going  to  school  should  serve  famously 
as  a  grass-cure ;  it  would  keep  her  out-of- 
doors  with  profit  to  both  her  health  and  her 
purse.  And  then  there  is  another  kind  of 
grass-cure  :  the  outdoor  life  out-of-doors,  to 
be  taken  in  long  country  walks,  in  fishing 
expeditions,  in  picnics,  in  camping  or  wher- 
ever roads,  hills,  meadows  and  brooks  lead. 
Finally,  there  is  the  outdoor  life  indoors.  This 
life  insists  upon  windows  open  to  the  air  and 
open  to  the  sunshine,  and  this  life  every  one 
of  us  may  have  all  the  time. 

[98] 


A   GIRL'S  SUMMER 

ANY  girl  who  settles  down  to  a  summer 
with  the  idea  of  doing  nothing,  or  in 
an  aimless,  not-knowing-what-to-do- 
next  fashion,   lessens  her  opportunities  for 
pleasure.     Pleasure  is  not  idleness,  although 
in  the  minds  of  a  great  many  people  who 
have   not   thought   very   much   it  is.      The 
right  sort  of  leisure  is  full  of  opportunities  for 
doing  interesting  things. 

There  are  some  girls  who  look  upon  their 
summers  as  an  escape  from  the  slavery  of 
their  school  year.  There  are  others  who 
think  of  their  summers  as  something  to  be 
endured  until  they  can  go  back  to  the  more 
or  less  selfish  freedom  of  the  school.  Neither 
is  the  right  way.  The  summer  ought  not  to 
be  an  entirely  frivolous  season,  neither  ought 
it  to  be  too  workaday.  If  a  girl  has  work  to 
do,  everything  should  be  so  arranged  as  not 
to  deprive  the  vacation  of  its  recreative  side. 
[99] 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

On  the  other  hand  the  summer  should  be  all 
the  happier  because  of  a  definite  object  to  be 
accomplished.  Something  is  wrong  with  a 
girl  unless  she  finds  both  summer  and  winter 
full  of  opportunity  and  pleasure. 

No  one  can  possibly  do  all  the  delightful 
or  useful  things  which  may  be  done  in  a 
single  summer.  In  these  months  there  is 
opportunity  for  growth  just  as  in  the  winter 
— perhaps  more  opportunity  physically.  And 
intellectually  there  is  much  to  be  seen  and 
observed.  For  the  girl  who  can,  it  is  well  to 
plan  to  be  out-of-doors  as  much  as  possible. 
For  some,  there  are  opportunities  for  camping, 
for  long  walks,  for  gardening,  to  learn  how 
to  do  certain  physically  useful  things,  to  row, 
swim  and  ride.  Only  an  extraordinary 
emergency  would  deprive  a  girl  of  all  the  out- 
of-door  exercise  which  she  needs.  If  she  isn't 
able  to  be  by  the  sea  or  in  the  mountains,  in 
almost  all  cities  there  is  opportunity  for  exer- 
cise and  games.  With  a  short  car  ride  she 

can  go  to  golf  links,  to  tennis  courts,  into  the 
[100] 


GirT  s  Summer 


country.  In  many  semi-citified  homes  there 
is  space  for  a  girl  to  do  some  gardening,  one 
of  the  most  profitable  of  pleasures,  good  for 
the  girl  and  good  for  the  home.  Many  homes 
would  be  much  more  attractive  if  there  were 
more  of  the  garden  spirit  in  them.  But  if 
there  is  no  chance  for  this,  there  can  always 
be  physical  culture,  an  opportunity  to  build 
one's  self  up  in  health,  to  live  sanely  and 
wisely,  to  get  plenty  of  sleep,  and  to  take 
corrective  exercise.  In  physical  culture  a 
girl  should  find  out  what  she  most  needs  —  al- 
most any  gymnastic  instructor  in  school  or 
college  would  be  glad  to  outline  work  —  and 
then  in  ten  or  fifteen  minute  exercises  develop 
herself  along  those  lines. 

For  the  girl  with  means  there  is  the  chance 
for  travel,  a  splendid  opportunity  to  cultivate 
many  virtues  of  which  the  young  traveller 
seldom  thinks  :  patience,  adaptability,  seeing 
the  bright  side  of  things.  Travelling  may  be 
made  a  very  important  part  of  education.  It 
is  too  bad  that  some  people  of  limited  horizon 
[101] 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

take  it  simply  as  a  chance  to  aggrandize 
themselves,  something  to  boast  about  and 
with  which  to  bore  their  friends  by  repeated 
accounts  of  what  they  did  "  abroad."  The 
great  Doctor  Samuel  Johnson,  the  compiler 
of  the  famous  dictionary  and  author  of 
"  Rasselas,"  heartily  disliked  young  travellers, 
for,  he  said,  "  They  go  too  raw  to  make  any 
great  remarks."  Travelling,  if  it  is  what  it 
should  be,  is  an  educational  opening.  In 
this  way  can  be  gained  a  background  for 
history,  for  literature,  for  sociology,  and  a 
vivid  and  living  knowledge  of  geography. 
Merely  running  about  with  a  guide-book  will 
not  achieve  these  ends,  although  a  guide- 
book is  a  very  important  asset :  sympathy, 
trying  to  understand  what  one  sees,  will. 
Travelling  takes  away  provincialism  because 
it  broadens  the  outlook.  In  a  very  real  sense 
the  world  becomes  one's  home. 

The  girl  who  is  not  able  to  move  about  or 
actually  travel  may  travel  in  books.      She 
should  be  ashamed  to  read  what  is  harmful 
[102] 


A  GirTs  Summer 

or  merely  cheap,  but  further  than  that  it  may 
not  much  matter.  Let  her  read  the  Little 
Books,  if  she  wishes,  and  the  Great  Little 
Books.  As  surely  as  the  magnet  swings 
towards  the  pole  will  the  Great  Little  Books 
take  her  to  the  Great  Big  Books.  She  will 
be  drawn  on  and  up  in  her  reading,  and  will 
have  cultivated  a  love  for  reading  which  is 
far  more  important  than  perfunctory  knowl- 
edge of  the  classics. 

Just  as  any  books  that  are  good  point 
towards  books  that  are  better,  so  should  the 
good  work  of  a  girl's  school  year  be  turning 
her  mind  towards  the  future  and  her  work  as 
a  mature  woman.  In  the  summer  she  has 
time  to  assimilate  all  she  has  done,  to  get  her 
bearings,  and  to  plan  wisely  for  the  year,  or 
years,  to  come.  For  a  girl  of  strong  physique 
the  summer  vacation  gives  an  opportunity  to 
add  towards  what  she  is  going  to  do  even- 
tually ;  to  specialize  in  some  line  of  work,  to 
take  a  library,  or  scientific,  course.  Many 
girls,  however,  who  wish  to  spend  their  sum- 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

mer  in  this  fashion  ought  not  to  consider  it, 
for  they  are  not  strong  enough.  It  is  well  for 
them  to  remember  that  it  is  the  quality  of 
work  that  counts  rather  than  the  quantity. 
Often  the  quality  of  a  girl's  work  for  an  en- 
suing school  year  depends  upon  her  freedom 
from  study  during  the  summer.  Students 
should  be  very  sure,  if  they  undertake  work 
in  the  summer,  that  it  is  not  done  simply  from 
a  nervous  desire  to  go  on  regardless  of  the 
quality  of  the  work  done.  But  for  those  in 
perfect  Jiealth  this  is  an  opportunity  to  try 
their  powers  in  different  ways  in  order  to  dis- 
cover what  it  is  they  really  wish  to  do.  A 
summer  so  spent  may  keep  many  a  girl  from 
slipping  into  teaching  just  because  it  seems 
the  only  thing  she  can  do.  Such  a  salvation 
will  be  twofold,  for  it  will  save  not  only  the 
girl,  but  also  a  profession  overcrowded  with 
loveless  followers.  There  are  so  many  needs 
to  be  filled  by  a  woman's  work  that  it  is  her 
duty  to  look  for  some  vocation  for  which  she 
is  truly  adapted,  to  get  out  of  the  ruts  of  those 
[  104] 


A  GirT  s  Summer 

professions  into  which  women  flock  because 
they  have  no  initiative. 

Often  a  girl  thinks  only  of  what  she  will  do 
with  her  own  summer  without  thinking  of 
what  she  will  do  with  her  mother's  or  her 
father's  summer.  For  nine  or  ten  months 
they  have  been  thinking  of  what  they  could 
do  for  her.  Sometimes  girls  do  not  realize 
the  actual  need  of  help  and  of  companion- 
ship which  those  at  home  feel,  and  the  older 
people  are  too  unselfish  to  force  this  need 
upon  their  juniors.  Between  the  unselfish- 
ness of  those  who  are  older  and  the  self-cen- 
tredness  of  those  who  are  younger,  there  is 
often  sad  havoc  made  in  a  home.  A  girl 
who,  after  a  year's  absence  and  all  that  has 
been  done  for  her,  can't  adjust  herself  to  those 
who  need  her,  has  still  something  to  learn. 

If  older  people  cannot  do  without  the  buoy- 
ancy of  the  young,  the  young  cannot  very 
well  afford  to  forget  the  mother  and  father 
who  have  much,  although  no  word  may  be 
didactically  spoken,  to  teach  them.  Let 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

the  girl  take  her  summer  not  only  as  an  op- 
portunity to  grow  closer  to  her  family  but  also 
as  a  chance  to  learn  home-making,  to  train 
herself  in  the  practical  things  of  the  home. 
This  practical  training  is  often  a  very  valua- 
ble supplement  to  the  school  work.  The  time 
is  passed  when  the  learned  woman  who  is 
unable  to  do  anything  for  herself  is  the  ideal 
— if  she  ever  has  been  that.  The  inability  to 
make  a  home  for  herself,  to  do  all  the  neces- 
sary things  daintily,  detracts  from  a  woman's 
power.  In  practical  ways  a  woman  should 
be  both  dainty  and  capable.  Parents,  as  well 
as  girls,  sometimes  forget  or  do  not  clearly 
recognize  the  fact  that  no  school,  no  college, 
can  take  the  place  of  the  home,  that  schools 
are  not  primarily  schools  in  home-making, 
but  rather  schools  of  general  education.  The 
summer  is  a  good  time  for  the  girl  to  find  her 
place  again  in  the  home  life,  and  for  both 
parents  and  children  to  rejoice  in  the  pleas- 
ures of  the  home — pleasures  and  opportunities 
which  no  institutional  life  can  give. 
[106] 


XI 

FROM  THE  SCHOOL  TO  THE  GIRL 

WHAT  the  school  is  able  to  do  for 
the  girl  depends  very  largely  upon 
the  girl  herself.  The  majority  of 
people  with  whom  she  comes  in  contact  do 
not  take  that  into  consideration,  and  the 
school  is  held  unfairly  responsible  for  the 
girl.  All  any  school  can  do  is  to  use  the 
material  it  finds.  Some  one  has  said,  with 
harsh  but  true  emphasis,  that  a  college  does 
not  make  a  fool,  it  simply  helps  in  the  de- 
velopment of  one.  As  an  illustration  of  its 
limitations,  a  school  sends  out  two  girls  from 
the  same  class  ;  one  girl  it  is  proud  to  have 
taken  as  a  type,  the  other  it  is  sorry  to  have 
represent  it.  Yet  both  have  been  under  ex- 
actly the  same  influence.  Students  do  not 
realize  how  fearfully  at  their  mercy  a  school 
is,  or  that,  so  far  as  reputation  is  concerned, 
it  is  they  who  make  or  mar  its  credit. 
[107] 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

If  the  school  training  is  worth  anything  at 
all,  it  makes  the  most  of  unpromising  ma- 
terial. Its  really  discouraging  experience  is 
not  with  the  girl  of  limited  ability  who  gives 
her  best  and  so  in  some  sense  gets  the  best, 
but  with  the  student  who  doesn't  give  her 
best  and  who,  because  of  her  own  indiffer- 
ence, is  always  misrepresenting  the  training 
she  is  receiving.  No  school  ever  wishes  to 
have  its  ideals  confused  by  a  vulgar  display 
of  wealth  or  by  loud  or  conspicuous  be- 
haviour. Yet  many  a  school,  with  ideals  all 
that  they  should  be,  is  misjudged  in  public 
places  because  of  some  thoughtless  or  unre- 
liable girls.  This  doesn't  seem  like  fair-play 
or  team-play,  does  it?  The  fineness  of  life 
ought  to  be  felt  and  expressed  in  student  be- 
haviour. Yet  how  often  it  is  not ! 

Another  way  in  which  the  ideals  of  a  school 
or  college  are  misrepresented  is  by  lack  of 
intellectual  integrity.  Any  school  informed 
with  a  large  spirit  wishes  to  meet  its  students 
on  a  platform  of  absolute  trust, — a  platform 
[108] 


From  the  School  to  the  Girl 

which  makes  precautions  against  dishonesty 
unnecessary.  Just  so  long  as  a  school  must 
be  vigilant  in  order  to  keep  a  few  students 
from  unfair  behaviour,  just  so  long  is  it  pre- 
vented from  meeting  them  all  on  a  basis  of 
absolute  trust.  Why  should  girls  excuse 
themselves  for  classroom  dishonesty  ?  What 
would  they  think  of  a  girl  who  cheated  in 
basket-ball?  Would  they  condone  that? 
Until  student  government  has  recognized 
absolute  intellectual  integrity  as  a  part  of  its 
ideas,  it  will  not  have  achieved  its  end.  The 
rock  on  which  all  scholarship  is  founded  is 
honour.  Lack  of  honour  is  fatal  to  its  ideal. 
"  Cribbing,"  often  excused  by  people  who  do 
not  stop  to  think,  is  the  small  beginning  of  a 
big  evil. 

Many  a  large  institution  is  like  an  anxious 
mother,  not  always  infallible  in  wisdom,  but 
personally  interested  in  and  eager  for  the 
success  of  the  individual.  A  successful  girl 
brings  credit  to  her  school,  for  she  demon- 
strates, as  nothing  else  can,  the  fact  that  the 
[109] 


A  Girl's  Student  Days  and  After 

school  is  achieving  its  purpose  in  service  to 
the  community.  How  much  this  encourage- 
ment is  needed,  girls  do  not  realize,  for  they 
do  not  know  all  the  difficulties  which  institu- 
tions, especially  technical  and  collegiate, 
have  to  meet  in  sending  their  students  out 
into  the  world.  In  finding  a  position  for  a 
student,  the  school  has  to  consider  the  whole 
girl.  It  may  care  greatly  for  an  attractive 
personality  and  yet  see  that  its  possessor  is 
lacking  in  qualities  of  faithfulness  and  ac- 
curacy, and  that  with  its  utmost  endeavour 
it  has  never  been  able  to  correct  these  faults. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  school  may  have 
those  students  whose  manners,  whose  dress, 
whose  personality,  whose  spelling,  whose 
awkwardly  expressed  notes,  whose  lack  of 
promptness,  make  against  success  in  any 
capacity. 

Another  point  for  which  the  school  looks 

in    recommending  its   students   is   physical 

fitness,  which  shows  itself  in  many  different 

ways :  in  voice,  in  carriage,  in  attractiveness, 

[no] 


From  the  School  to  the  Girl 

in  staying  power.  One  teacher  who  had  an 
excellent  record  as  a  student  and  was,  be- 
sides, a  fine  girl,  had  so  unpleasant  and 
absurd  a  voice  that  her  students  were  in  a 
continual  state  of  amusement  and  would 
learn  nothing  from  her.  A  great  many 
teachers  have  lost  in  power  because  of  a 
poor  voice,  strident,  or  lifeless,  or  husky,  or 
falsetto.  A  poor  enunciation,  or  words  that 
do  not  carry,  are  ineffectual  means  by  which 
to  reach  a  class,  to  hold  a  customer,  or  to 
introduce  one's  self  favourably  to  the  interest 
of  others.  For  a  girl  who  is  going  to  have 
any  part  in  public  life — and  most  girls  do 
nowadays — a  good  voice  is  an  absolute 
essential.  And  it  is  well  for  us  to  remember 
that  the  voice  is  not  something  superficial, 
but  that  it  is  the  expression  of  that  which  is 
within. 

Another  way  in  which  physical  fitness 
shows  itself  is  in  the  carriage.  A  girl  who 
carries  herself  with  erectness  and  energy 
brings  a  certain  conviction  with  her  of  fitness 


A  Girfs  Student  Days  and  After 

for  many  things,  of  self-respect,  of  ability, 
and  reveals  in  her  bearing  something  of  her 
mind  as  well  as  of  her  body.  We  are 
always  tempted  to  think  a  person  who 
"slumps"  physically  may  slump  in  other 
ways.  A  good  carriage,  good  voice,  and 
strong,  clean,  digestive  system  are  far  more 
important  than  beauty  of  features. 

There  is  another  matter  at  which  the 
school  in  placing  its  students  must  look. 
To  be  a  desirable  candidate  for  a  good 
position  a  girl  need  not  be  expensively 
gowned,  but  she  must  be  daintily  and  freshly 
dressed.  Immaculate  shirt  waist,  a  plain, 
well-made  skirt,  with  good  shoes,  stockings 
and  gloves  and  a  quiet,  pretty  hat,  are  all 
any  woman  needs  in  meeting  her  business 
obligations.  And  that  daintiness  which  she 
shows  in  her  dress  she  must  show  in  her 
person  too,  in  clean  skin  and  finger-nails, 
good  teeth,  and  smooth,  attractively  ar- 
ranged hair. 

It  is  very  important  for  the  interests  of  a 

[112] 


From  the  School  to  the  Girl 

school,  as  well  as  for  the  individual,  to  place 
its  students  advantageously.  To  have  them 
succeed  widens  its  sphere  of  usefulness  and 
influence  and  opens  new  channels  of  service. 
Every  college  puts  itself  to  considerable  ex- 
pense in  looking  out  for  the  interests  of  its 
students,  for  the  glory  of  a  great  school  lies 
not  only  in  the  people  whom  it  collects  into 
its  midst,  but  even  more  in  those  whom  it 
sends  out.  A  girl  has  no  right  to  go  so 
lightly  through  her  school  life  that  she  fails 
to  see  in  it  all  the  self-sacrifice  and  effort  and 
ambitions  that  have  gone  into  the  building 
up  of  what  is  her  privilege  and  opportunity. 
In  so  far  as  she  does  this  she  fails  in  the 
team-play  spirit.  Why  should  a  girl  think 
that  she  can  spend  her  father's  money,  or 
the  means  of  her  school,  thoughtlessly? 
What  would  happen  to  her  if  she  did  this 
with  the  funds  of  her  basket-ball  team  ?  Yet 
girls  waste  the  resources  of  their  school  by 
carelessness  with  its  property,  a  carelessness 
that  collectively  mounts  up  into  thousands  of 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

dollars,  and  never  once  stop  to  think  how 
difficult  every  big  school  finds  it  to  make 
ends  meet. 

Before  it  is  too  late,  at  least  now  that  she 
is  leaving  school,  let  her  stop  to  realize  that 
a  great  deal  of  the  work  for  an  institution  is 
along  the  line  of  self-sacrifice,  in  the  gifts 
given,  in  the  work  of  its  administrators  and 
teachers.  This  unselfishness  means  a  finan- 
cial loss,  for  business  ability  might  be  in- 
vested in  more  lucrative  ways ;  it  means  a 
social  sacrifice,  for  there  is  a  certain  kind  of 
impersonality  which  is  demanded  in  work 
that  deals  with  a  continually  changing  com- 
munity ;  it  means  risk  in  the  great  strain  put 
upon  physical  and  nervous  strength ;  it 
means  forgetting  one's  self ;  for  the  true 
teacher  is  willing  to  be  forgotten  when  she 
has  served  others.  What  a  school  may  ac- 
complish for  its  students  is  its  only  com- 
pensation for  all  this  self-sacrifice 


["4] 


XII 
THE  WORK  TO  BE 

ONE  of  the  qualities  a  girl  who  has 
completed  her  school  or  college  life 
needs  to  show  for  a  few  months 
more  than  anything  else  is  the  quality  of  ad- 
justment, for  she  will  find  that  she  must  con- 
tinually adjust  herself  to  new  conditions 
whether  they  be  of  the  home  or  elsewhere. 
All  the  time  through  school  she  has  been  in 
some  sense  a  centre  of  interest.  Her  class 
has  been  an  important  factor  in  the  academic 
life.  When  she  has  gone  home  it  has  been  as 
a  school  or  college  girl,  and  she  has  been  of 
interest  because  she  brought  that  life  into  the 
home.  But  now  the  attitude  of  others 
towards  her  is  different.  She  ceases  to  be  the 
centre  of  attention,  and  for  her  a  day  of  serious 
readjustment  is  at  hand.  Perhaps  in  her 
own  estimate  she  has  seemed  even  more  im- 
portant than  she  really  was.  She  is  likely 
["5] 


A  GirTs  Student  Days  and  After 

now  to  swing  from  a  sense  of  self-importance 
to  an  injured  feeling  of  insignificance,  and  to 
a  conviction  that  people  can  get  along  quite 
as  well  without  her.  Up  to  this  time  when 
she  has  gone  home  she  has  been  an  honoured 
visitor.  But  now  that  she  is  at  home  to  stay, 
instead  of  becoming  the  centre  she  is  merely 
part  of  the  family  circle  with  its  obligation  of 
doing  for  others.  Her  presence  in  the  house- 
hold is  no  longer  a  novelty. 

The  swift  change  from  a  highly-organized, 
methodical  life  to  the  life  of  the  home  where 
there  is  not  so  much  method,  is  hard  for  a 
girl.  One  reason  it  is  difficult  is  that  while 
she  may  be  accomplishing  a  great  deal  that 
is  useful,  she  seems  to  be  doing  nothing  and 
to  get  nowhere.  She  feels  as  if  she  were  in 
the  midst  of  a  conflict  of  duties.  In  school 
she  has  had  implanted  in  her  the  idea  that 
she  must  accomplish  some  definite  thing,  and 
between  this  objective  and  the  irregular  de- 
mands of  the  home  there  appears  to  be  more 
or  less  clashing.  She  is  confronted  by  a 
[116] 


The  Work  to  Be 


problem  not  easy  for  any  one  to  solve  :  how 
to  keep  her  definiteness  of  aim  and  work,  and 
yet  not  be  self-centred. 

Oftentimes  when  a  girl  fails  to  adjust  her- 
self to  the  home  life,  her  family  and  friends 
feel  that  she  is  rather  selfish  in  her  desire  to 
carry  out  her  own  aims  rather  than  to  give 
them  up  for  new  demands.  Frequently  the 
family  is  as  much  to  blame  for  not  realizing 
that  the  girl  needs  to  be  helped  back  into  the 
old  life  as  the  girl  is  for  not  being  able  to 
help  herself.  In  the  home  the  spirit  of  team- 
play  is  much  needed.  Quite  as  much  as  the 
girl,  the  family  has  a  lesson  to  learn  in  the  art 
of  adjustment  and  in  remembering  that  this 
grown-up  child  isn't  just  the  same  individual 
she  was  when  she  went  away  several  years 
ago.  They  need  to  realize  that  the  girl  may 
be  able  to  give  more  to  the  home  life  than 
she  ever  did  before,  but  that  it  will  be  given 
in  a  somewhat  different  way. 

While  she  is  learning  the  difficult  art  of 
finding  her  place  again,  a  great  deal  depends 


A  GirFs  Student  Days  and  After 

upon  the  individual  girl,  not  only  in  the  home 
but  in  the  community  at  large.  Sometimes 
she  needs  to  be  reminded  that  although  she 
may  have  had  more  advantages  than  those 
left  at  home,  that  doesn't  necessarily  make 
her  a  superior  person.  A  girl  who  is  inclined 
either  to  pity  or  to  admire  herself  too  greatly 
should  give  herself  a  vigorous  shaking.  In 
the  long  run  she  will  find  it  easier  to  do  that 
on  her  own  account  than  to  have  others  do  it 
for  her.  The  friends  at  home,  or  in  the 
church,  or  in  the  town,  with  education  of  a 
different  kind  coming  to  them,  may  have  quite 
as  much  and  more  to  give  her  than  she  to 
give  them.  One  indicator  of  a  really  cul- 
tivated woman  is  her  power  to  adapt  her- 
self to  the  circumstances  in  which  she  is 
placed.  A  gentlewoman  never  calls  atten- 
tion to  the  difference  between  herself  and 
somebody  else.  The  woman  of  broad  culture 
is  the  one  who  makes  everybody  feel  at  home 
with  her.  If  a  girl's  education  has  been 
worth  anything  at  all,  it  should  give  her  not 
[118] 


Work  to  Be 


a  superior,  set-aside  feeling,  but  a  desire  to 
be  more  friendly  and  useful  wherever  she 
may  be,  and,  not  placing  too  much  stress  on 
externals,  to  look  for  essentials,  to  get  the  full 
value  from  every  person  and  from  every  ex- 
perience with  which  she  comes  in  contact. 

Girls  go  to  so  many  different  kinds  of 
homes  that  it  is  unlikely  that  they  will  meet 
the  same  sorts  of  difficulties.  There  is  the 
girl  who  goes  into  the  society  home,  where 
it  is  impossible  for  her  to  carry  out  her  ideals 
without  conflict  with  its  social  standards.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  is  the  girl  who  goes 
into  the  very  simple  home  where  all  the 
stress  is  upon  the  domestic  side  of  life.  And 
there  is  the  girl  who  has  to  provide  part  of 
the  family  income.  Very  likely  she  has  the 
hardest  problem  of  all.  She  enters  upon 
some  new  work,  and  nine  times  out  of  ten 
the  way  is  not  made  easy  for  her ;  she  is  a 
novice  with  all  the  hardships  that  come  to  the 
novice.  Perhaps  in  the  beginning  she  has 
met  a  very  real  perplexity  in  hardly  knowing 
[H9] 


A  GirFs  Student  Days  and  After 

what  line  of  work  to  take  up.  She  has  no 
particular  interest,  no  especial  talent,  no  bril- 
liant record,  no  powerful  friends,  no  money 
with  which  to  establish  herself.  With  her  it 
must  be  as  it  is  with  thinking :  she  must  seize 
hold  of  the  thing  nearest  her.  What  seems 
to  her  a  temporary  and  unsatisfactory  expe- 
dient will  in  many  cases  open  out  a  path 
leading  to  something  much  broader.  At 
least  she  may  remember  this  as  consolation  : 
that  even  that  experience  of  uncertainty,  of 
indecision,  is  a  part  of  education,  and  out  of 
it,  rightly  and  bravely  met,  will  come  some 
richness  for  her  future  life. 

The  beginning  of  a  work,  teaching  or  any- 
thing else,  may  have  to  be  rather  irksome, 
indeed,  may  be  exceedingly  difficult, — an  ex- 
perience that  will  perhaps  test  staying  power 
to  the  utmost.  When  it  is  too  late  to  give 
due  appreciation  we  realize  that  the  work  in 
school  which  was  planned  for  us  and  arranged 
with  our  physical  and  mental  well-being  in 
view  was,  after  all,  not  so  hard  as  we  thought 
[  120] 


The  Work  to  Be 


it  at  the  time.     We  wish  that  we  had  enjoyed 
our  leisure  more  and  complained  less. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  fatigue,  as  a  sec- 
retary, a  clerk,  a  trained  nurse,  a  teacher,  a 
social  worker,  the  burden  may  be  so  great 
that  the  girl  is  disheartened.  She  is  all  the 
more  disheartened  because,  knowing  that  a 
useful  life  is  a  strong,  steady  pull,  the  way 
before  her  seems  interminable.  If  she  car- 
ries her  whip  inside  her — this  counsel  is  not 
for  those  of  us  who  are  lazy — she  does  well 
to  remember  that  there  is  a  point  beyond 
which  fatigue  should  not  be  borne,  that  is, 
when  it  overdraws  her  capital  of  health  and 
nervous  energy.  Raising  pigs  is  preferable 
to  a  so-called  high  profession  when  pig-rais- 
ing is  happily  joined  with  a  reasonable 
amount  of  health  and  security.  The  pigs 
and  health  together  can  always  pay  mort- 
gages and  buy  necessities  for  those  depend- 
ent upon  us  and  for  ourselves.  The  high 
calling  without  health  is  like  a  wet  paper- 
bag  :  it  will  hold  nothing. 

[121] 


A  GirFs  Student  Days  and  After 

The  girl  meets  with  another  difficulty  in 
finding  out  that  in  almost  any  line  of  work  a 
great  deal  of  time  is  needed  for  the  mastery 
of  what  seem  the  simplest  principles.  No 
one  wants  the  girl  who  hasn't  had  experience, 
and  nobody  seems  disposed  to  take  her  and 
give  her  that  experience.  However,  we  all 
find  some  one  who  is  hardy  enough  or  kind 
enough  to  try  us ;  and  as  every  year  now 
there  is  more  effort  put  into  finding  the  work 
girls  are  most  suited  to  do,  there  is  no  excuse 
for  slipping  into  teaching  as  a  last  resort. 
Not  unnaturally  we  sometimes  distrust  our- 
selves, especially  in  taking  up  an  occupation 
to  which  we  are  not  accustomed.  And  in 
her  new  work  the  girl,  uncertain  of  her  abil- 
ity to  master  what  she  has  undertaken,  is 
placed  in  a  position  in  which  she  has  the  en- 
couragement of  neither  the  school  nor  the 
home.  Before,  she  has  put  much  of  the  re- 
sponsibility for  her  work  and  life  upon  parents 
and  instructors.  Now  she  has  to  be  her  own 
judge  and  pass  judgment  on  herself  and  her 
[  122] 


The  Work  to  Be 


work.  She  has,  too,  not  only  to  lift  her  own 
weight  but  the  weight  of  others  as  well.  As 
she  longs  for  cooperation,  good  will  and  en- 
couragement the  value  of  the  team-play  spirit 
has  never  seemed  so  great  before. 

We  do  not  need  to  be  told  to  remember 
the  happy  and  easy  experiences  of  life.  No 
girl  forgets  them.  What  we  do  need  is  some 
one  to  tell  us  where  the  hard  places  will  be, 
to  warn  us,  to  stiffen  our  courage  and  to 
point  clearly  to  the  uses  of  hard  work  and 
adversity.  And  although  this  may  seem  like 
placing  another  straw  on  the  poor  camel's 
back,  it  is  now  time  to  say  that  in  her  life- 
work,  whether  it  be  in  her  home  or  outside,  a 
girl  should  be  very  clear  in  her  mind  what 
her  aims  and  purposes  are.  If  she  is  working 
solely  for  the  praise  and  commendation  of 
others,  she  will  often  be  grievously  disap- 
pointed. Not  in  recognition  does  real  re- 
ward lie,  but  in  the  work  itself.  If  she  wins 
great  popularity  she  is  likely  to  find  that  there 


A  Gir/'s  Student  Days  and  After 

is  nothing  that  shifts  so  quickly  and  is  such 
a  quicksand.  If  material  wealth  is  her  sole 
object  she  will  harden  into  the  thing  she 
seeks  and  add  but  another  joyless  barbarian 
to  a  modern  world  congratulating  itself  that 
barbarism  is  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  yet  pre- 
senting the  spectacle  of  a  mammon  worship 
such  as  has  never  been  seen  before.  If  gold 
is  her  end,  and  not  the  means  to  a  nobler 
end,  then  she  will  find  herself  constantly  sac- 
rificing higher  issues  to  that,  and  lowering 
her  one-time  ideals.  Truly  the  woman  who 
marries  solely  for  the  comforts  of  a  home,  the 
woman  who  teaches,  or  nurses  for  "  pay " 
alone,  has  her  reward,  and  that  is  in  self-de- 
struction. She  is  a  carrier  of  barbarism,  not 
of  culture  ;  of  disease,  not  of  health  ;  of  trib- 
ulation, not  of  joy.  The  only  real  reward 
there  can  be  lies  in  the  idealism,  the  joy,  the 
strength  of  the  work  done  and  in  a  mind  and 
heart  conscious  of  having  done  their  best. 

THE  END 
[124] 


By  CLARA  E.  LAUGHLIN 


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The  Gleaners 

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Again  Miss  Laughlin  has  given  us  a  master-piece  in 
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PROF.  EDWARD  A.   STEINER       ,    A**" •'"™« 

.^^— — — — — — ^-^—— _— — _          Immigrant  Tidt,"  tic. 

The  Broken  Wall 

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